


The weight of a lie

by SouthernLolita



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Baby Peter, Depression, Feels, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Parent Tony Stark, Plot Twists, Protective Pepper Potts, Rating May Change, Revenge, Sneaky Nick Fury, Superfamily (Marvel), Superhusbands, Tags May Change, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony is not ok, Violence, grammar may not be perfect, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:52:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 29,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernLolita/pseuds/SouthernLolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a lie for the righteous cause goes too far, how will Steve and Tony cope. Will the darkness consume the engineer before the truth can be reveled?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

   

 

Thank you for coming to read my work! I look forward to your comments and kudos. This is my first full length work for this fandom so please  be kind.


	2. Take me to church

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An: Ok so this is my first stab at a Stony Fanfic, this is just a short one. It actually started out as a one shot but I quickly figured out this one would end up being 5 or more parts and was like meh, let's do this thing! Cause ya know kids, Sometimes you gatta run before you can walk *wink*
> 
> AN: Song featured Is Take me to church by - Hozier, I do not own it or the avengers this work is purely for fan enjoyment and I profit in no way. Please support the official releases. The video below basically inspired this whole fic.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mlBbny-qv24

**Prologue - TAKE ME TO CHURCH**

**"Take me to church, I worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife."**

Laying down the moniker of iron man was challenging. Tony wouldn't lie and say it wasn't. It was one of the most difficult choices he had ever made. He tried before and could not stick with it for very long, there had always been something to pull him back into the fray. He couldn't do it when Pepper begged him, when he lost his home and nearly his own life.

That was before.

Before Steve, before there was someone there who understood what it meant to not be able to just stand by and let things happen. Someone willing to stand by his side when the proverbial shit hit the fan. The Captain who did not ask him to sit back in safety while the world burned around them.

They had that camaraderie, they got in each other's faces half the time but it was always with reason, they were both stubborn, controlling and perfect for each other. Somewhere in all that posturing and snide remarks they found a friendship and then it tumbled into something more all by accident.

They weren't even sure just what they had at the time, if it was convenient or if it was more. Neither man wanted to jinx that fragile thing between them. Steve, with his dated thinking struggled with his feelings and even more with the idea of people knowing. It was Tony who blurted out "by the way, I love you." over pizza after a mission. Steve was quiet and just reached for the inventors hand under the table, he said nothing but the pressure of his touch spoke more.

Just like that Tony found that he had something so different yet so wonderful. And for once he didn't even go looking for it, if he wanted to get poetic about it he would say that it was fate. Or as he joking commented in his wedding vows. "I had a husband on ice for 70 years waiting just for me."

Before they adopted Peter, Tony had been so terrified about ending up just like Howard. Being some distant figure that showed up between business trips with expensive gifts and awkward words that was on better days. Worst case scenario the legendary weapons builder would stumble in drunk shouting, nothing Tony ever did was enough. He was nearly pulling his hair out when Steve said he thought they could have a family together.

Tony often wondered how Steve could have so much faith in him. Somehow, it was different when they brought the child home that first night that irrational fear of screwing up another human being turned into fierce pride. Tony held his infant son and saw the world open up. He wanted to be there for his child, to give Peter the kind of life he didn't have. To be the kind of father Howard never was.

He could do it now; he could lock up the suit and let someone else fight the bad guys for once. He had monsters under beds to vanquish and the alphabet to tackle, and as crazy as it sounded that was important. More important than anything. Steve supported the idea, of course he wanted to be sure it was really what Tony wanted to do and not what the engineer thought that his husband wanted.

Tony's reason was sound and Steve agreed that it would be good for Peter, having at least one of them there all the time, With Steve's missions and the occasional business trips for Stark industries they were able to work out a plan. It wasn' t like Tony had given up everything. He still tinkered in his workshop as the Avengers tech support. Those years were so good, it seemed like for once everything was finally falling into place. That wonderful domestic routine that Tony never thought he would enjoy.

Only it seemed just when Tony Stark was ready to be the responsible one. Someone else had other plans.

Fate was a cruel joke.

* * *

 

It started with rolling blackouts and mainframe crashes. Not all at once, just over time... there should have been more clues to connect the dots but then the attacks got worse and they couldn't pin down who was responsible.

Looking back, Tony would blame himself for being preoccupied with first words and first steps. Maybe if he had turned on the news more or paid more attention to the headlines instead of Dr. Seuss. He could have seen the connections, could have had Jarvis monitor the activity. They could have gotten ahead of this and then maybe...

All signs pointed to unorganized anarchists. Little bands of angry teenagers and college students with too much time on their hands and too smart for their own good. On the other hand, maybe it was a ploy to test the stability of national security.

However, some knew better. The powers that be always had an odd habit of holding their tongues at the worst possible moments. Thy liked having their cards close and lurking in the shadows until the moment for maximum advantage showed its face. Then and only then would the knight advance the board and to the unknowing masses, somehow someone made it all better. As if the public was too stupid to handle the truth, even though the people lived that truth and then some every day.

The tide of public opinion was turning violently. There was a quiet voice in the crowd that began chanting for the end of heroes, for the rise of something darker. Like an infection, that voice was growing, taking root in the lonely and disenfranchised.

There had to be a sacrifice play to bring things back around. The righteous cause needed a face upon their banner, a fire to light in the hearts of those who still wanted to believe. However, the fires that burn the brightest are found in destruction, the sad fact that out of tragedy comes solidarity.

They needed a lamb for the slaughter.

* * *

**"This is hungry work...."**

 

 


	3. Come in closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Song featured Is Come in closer by - Blue October, I do not own it or the avengers this work is purely for fan enjoyment and I profit in no way. Please support the official releases. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8tIlpGjszQ

**"Our souls become useless as the day they were born, in the rusted arm rocking chair, away from your storm. "**

**Aug. 15th 2015**

"Daddy Look!" Peter came running up waving a drawing in one hand as Dum-E rolled behind the boy beeping with an out stretched and now padded claw. The helper bot had become an impromptu nanny for when Tony was working in the lab.

"I see that Petey pie," He said scooping the child into his lap to have a better look at the drawing.

Peter spoke animatedly pointing at the different colorful shapes and explaining how each one was a different piece of equipment in the lab. The bots all whirling and beeping as they were each mentioned as a feature in the child's art.

"Do you think papa will like it?" Peter asked craning his head back against his father's chest.

Tony smiled and kissed the boys forehead. "I'm sure he'll love it."

* * *

 

Steve had been gone for two weeks and the last two days he hadn't called. It wasn't like him but Tony wasn't the type to worry. Steve was a big boy and could take care of himself; he didn't need Tony of all people to mother hen him.

Maybe he should have.

Maybe if the inventor had some sleepless nights this wouldn't have come as a shock. Maybe if he hadn't believed the lie he told to his son that morning when he said. "It's ok champ your pop will be back soon. He always comes back." Then this wouldn't ache the way it does now, it wouldn't dig and twist into his damaged heart and slowly ebb away the hope he had left in this world.

Because Steve didn't come back.

He was never coming back.

He should have known something was wrong when Pepper came into the lab with Bruce and Happy. Should have seen that "group solidarity, let's keep Tony from losing his shit." look in their eyes. Should have noticed how pale Bruce looked before the good doctor gathered up Peter and walked out before Pepper even started.

There was that air of something horrible hanging around them. Of course they would have Pepper do this, she was the safe bet. Happy was there in-case Tony lost it.

Bruce... well he was just being a good uncle, Peter didn't need to hear it like this.

"Tony, I need to talk to you." Her eyes where shining and tip of her nose was a little red. It occurred to the mechanic then that Jarvis hadn't announced the group's arrival. Still no alarm bells went off, not yet.

Then he tilted his head, glancing over Happy's shoulder as Bruce picked up Peter and cast him and look of... Pity? Why... what was this...

"Pep what's going on." he started to stand up from his work bench but his friend and former body guard stopped him.

"There's something we have to tell you Tony." Happy said, not meeting his eyes.

"It's.... it's about Steve." Pepper choked on the words before taking a breath, smoothing her sweaty palms down her skirt. "I got a call, Ms. Hill thought it would be best..."

Tony slapped at the hand on his shoulder shooting up from the chair, "What about Steve... is he hurt, was he captured?" He was ready to break out the old suit and go get his husband if he had to, Pepper could watch Peter, they wouldn't be long. Tony already had some quip about calling Steve Princess Peach, they'd laugh and Tony would snark; when they got back to the tower Tony would order take out and they'd eat five star Italian out of styrofoam boxes then make love.

That's what would happen, that's what had to happen.

Pepper looked away chewing on her lower lip, "I'm sorry Tony, and I wish I didn't have to do this."

"Pepper..?" he questioned her already feeling cool sweat gather at the base of his neck.

She looked back tears streaking down her face. "Steve... he, He's been killed Tony. I am so sorry."

Tony had no idea what happened, his knees gave out and then Happy's arms were around the his shoulders. Pepper was there touching his hair and repeating those tearful apologies. But it was like listening through water, it was cold and far away and he felt like his heart had stopped and he was just floating there in limbo. It was like having the reactor torn out all over again.

This couldn't be.... The serum... and... And this was Steve they were talking about here. Steven Grant Roger, Captain America. This was all some elaborate joke, Steve was going to walk in any moment and it would be over and Tony would hit him and hug him and tell him never to do this again. "Leave the practical jokes to the birdbrain," he'd say.

This wasn't a joke.

"Tony can you hear me say something?" Pepper was holding his face and he vaguely registered the feel of the cold lab floor under his palms where he sat.

"He can't... it's not..." He mumbled looking at her with such confusion, begging and pleading in those deep brown eyes that this had to a bad dream.

She shook her head and wiped at the tears he hadn't felt till her slim fingers brushed them from his cheeks. "He's gone honey, I sorry I wish I could tell you something else, anything else. But I can't, you know we're here, all of us. You're gunna get through this."

Tony just stared blankly at the door, "I...I can't tell Pete that. How do I tell him that...?"

Pepper nodded and hugged him again, "I will if you want me to, or Bruce said he could. We'll do this however you want."

She was good like that, always taking care of everything...even the hard stuff. Tony just nodded numbly. "I need to be alone."

Pepper looked up at Happy, her husband shrugged his shoulders and spoke into his ear piece, discretely asking Jarvis to watch Tony and alert him if the genius did anything harmful.

They left him, they wanted to be there when Bruce explained things to Peter, even though Banner swore he could keep it together. Pepper wanted to be sure.

* * *

 

Now, Tony sat there staring into the palms of his hands letting it sink in. His eyes tracking the grease that followed the lines of his palms and settled around the gold of his wedding band. "Why...why did you have to be the one to fall on the wire?"

He hadn't felt this numb in years. It wasn't as if he could scream or lose his mind. He had to keep it together; there was a brokenhearted little boy who had already lost his family once that was depending on him. There was no time to morn what he lost because if he let himself do that he would break and he absolutely could not break... Stark men were made of iron.

So if Tony could not get mad. He could damn sure get even.

* * *

**"The truth becomes lethal, a lie made by man. When my shoes become hammers and my words become sand."**

 


	4. No Bravery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Song featured Is No Bravery by - James Blunt I do not own it or the avengers this work is purely for fan enjoyment and I profit in no way. Please support the official releases. 
> 
> Just a side note- Steve’s chapters are not in line with Tony’s time line sorry if that’s confusing let me know.

**“I see no bravery in your eyes anymore, only sadness.”**  
  
**March 7th 2016**

* * *

  
  
This was eerily similar.  
  
That was the first thought that went through Steve's mind when he woke up in a small, pristine room alone. The dejavu of it was almost laughable, even down to the radio on the corner table that sat softly playing. However, instead of a ballgame playing it was the current top 40, or at least the top 40 he recalled from before the mission.  The last thing he remembered was finding out hydra was behind the attacks.  
  
They had been trying to break down society, in an attempt to bring forth their new world order. They had ties to the organization AIM, or what was left of it. A small group of hackers and scientists  from the fallen group had joined with the Avenger’s oldest  enemies to perfect a plan and unleash chaos. They would show the world how their governments could not protect them. How ‘heroes’ where little more than puppets to the establishment. Hydra and AIM would then offer a new alternative, they would offer power and protection. All the while brainwashing the masses.  
  
Steve had been sent out to help stop them, he wanted to go. He wanted to finish Hydra once and for all. He needed to end this now. Rogers was so tired of never being able to take out this cancer at its root. This time it would be different. He had a family to protect and once and for all he was going to destroy Hydra.  
  
He hoped like hell he wasn’t waking up after another 70 years, to a world that could still be under the thumb madmen.  
  
The super soldier racked his brain, what had happened? Where was he last?  Steve remembered leaving in the quinjet… leaving Tony and Peter….oh god Tony...Peter. The cold crippling fear of ‘what if ‘ sunk into his bones. What if this was like the last time…what if it was longer?  
  
What if they were both already gone?  
  
Steve did his best to calm down and think rationally, he would have remembered something like being frozen again. He had to remember, but the more he thought the less plausible answers he was getting and that was crushing.  
  
 The idea that he could have missed out on his son’s life, on waking up again to find the person he loved long dead or their mind riddled with dementia. Steve didn’t think he could bear that again. He had such a hard time seeing Peggy like that. The thought of Tony, his Tony, his brilliant husband  struggling to remember what day or year it was.  
  
He couldn’t think about that.  
  
If Steve thought about it to much he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else and right now he needed to figure out where he was and why.  
  


He sat on the bedside with his head in hands trying to piece together the last events he could remember.  
  
They left in the quinjet.  
              It was somewhere rural and unsuspecting and they touched down outside of a wooded area and then…then it was fuzzy.  
                       There had been a fight and he’d been separated from Natasha, he was pursuing someone.                  Flashes of images filtered through his mind rapidly.  
               A figure dressed in black their face obscured as they ran just ahead of him through the woods. They were fast or maybe just knew the landscape better.  
  
He had gone into an abandoned church following the person and then... Nothing.  Why there was nothing…nothing was bad.  Nothing was cold and empty and tasted like salt water rising up in his throat.  
  
  
"You missed a hell of a show captain" A familiar voice called from the doorway  
  
Blue eyes shot up meeting the face of the former SHIELD director, Nick Fury.  As much as Steve hated to admit it he was glad to see his former boss that meant it had not been 70years.  It meant there was still a chance that everything was fine.  
  
"What show was that?" The soldier asked, despite the niggling in the back of his brain saying he wouldn’t want to know. He hid his worry well, he hoped it was just going to be something foolish like ‘oh the building that fell on you’ or ‘the explosion that sent you flying into next week... literally.’ those were things he could deal with. Things that could be resolved and he could go home to his family.  
  
This however, he could not deal with.  
  
“Your Funeral”

* * *

**“A generation drenched in hate say He has been here, and I see no bravery…”**  
  



	5. This is what it feels like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Song featured Is This is what is feels like by - Beth I do not own it or the avengers this work is purely for fan enjoyment and I profit in no way. Please support the official releases.

  
**“I don’t even know how I’ll survive”**

* * *

  
**Aug. 19th 2015**  
  
Black suits, black shoes, black umbrellas, and a black casket. That is what funerals were supposed to look like. Yet somehow it was all Tony could fixate on, Steve didn’t wear much black. Come to think of it, Tony was sure all Steve had in the shadowy shade was that one nice suit and a black sweater Pepper purchased for him last Christmas.   
  
There was too much of it here, to much darkness that made everything feel tight. Like all this pain was closing in, high and oppressive like those filthy cave walls back in the dessert.   
  
Tony sat there on the front row of the church listening to some priest drone on about peace that knows no understanding and the embrace of heaven.  Tony didn’t feel at peace. He would never know peace or understanding again. Steve was his peace.   
  
He just felt hollow now.  
  
Peter was sitting on his lap and as much as Pepper offered to take him, Tony didn’t want to let the child go.  Peter’s little hand splayed over his tie petting at the soft satin fabric before pushing his little head back under Tony’s chin.  He couldn’t let go.   
  
It felt like they were alone in a cathedral with standing room only.  For Tony his whole world was up there at the foot of the alter in that long pine box, sleek, black, unforgiving, and draped with an American flag. It was so final.    
Tony swallowed down his tears and kissed the top of his sons head. He cried enough this morning alone in bed. Stark had held it all in for the last few days, he kept away from the penthouse and slept in the lab. The whole time with just him and Peter on an inflatable mattress, under the watchful eye of Jarvis and the bots.  Peter had cried so much the first couple of days and Tony had to keep it together.  He had to be there to cuddle away the tears and tell Peter how much his Papa loved him and always would. He had to do the right thing, and even though he wasn’t a religious man, he knew Steve was, “Papa’s in heaven and he will always love you ok Pete, he’s always there and you can talk to him when ever you want and he’ll always listen. I’m here and I love you so much, you know that right buddy?”   
  
He couldn’t do that today though, today he had to go back ‘home’ and face the memories. He had to clean himself up and look suitable for Steven Grant Rogers - Stark’s final send off. There would be no one to tell him pretty lies for the faithful. Tony didn’t feel a think when he looked up in the misty morning sky. All he had was a memory of empty space and alien armies. There was nothing beyond the veil as far as he knew.   
  
That morning he had done so well, so well keeping his mind empty. Faithfully going through the motions; taking the elevator up to the top floor; walking through the main living area and bypassing the kitchen. He didn’t turn his head to the photos on the hall walls, he didn’t shiver when he walking into their bedroom.    
  
Tony had done so well, until he sat on their bed, until that damn urge couldn’t be quelled and he reached out and grabbed Steve’s Pillow. Tony pressed his face into the cotton and could still smell his husband’s shampoo. That fading remnant of the man he loved and would never see again.  It broke something that was holding so strong up until then. The dam shattered and the playboy’s throat tightened as the sob clawed its way out.  He doubled over, crushing the pillow to his chest. He cried and let out horrible strangled sounds through gritted teeth.   
  
 This wasn’t right; it should have never been like this. Tony was a realist and at least a part of his mind had planned for the inevitable but not like this. He thought he would go first, a life spent living to excess finally catching up with him. Not Steve, never Steve.  Not his Captain, his leader, his lover, his friend.  It should have never been Steve.   
  
After a few hours Tony had no more tears to give, he didn’t want to give that hurt to anyone else. Not the media, not his friends.   
  
He would give them this, sitting there on the front row of the church, holding his boy and staring straight ahead with no emotion on his face. His eyes guarded by dark glasses, guarded because he knew if they could see his eyes then his carefully crafted façade would be broken.   
  
That was the thing about Tony; he said everything with his eyes. Steve loved his eyes, said they reminded him of dark chocolate or the expensive coffee Tony Loved so much.   
  
_“I always know what you’re thinking just by your eyes.”_ Steve had said that once.  They had been lying in bed one night, warm and satisfied after making love lazily for the last hour or so.  That was something he had only ever done with Steve. When they were together it wasn’t like some performance, while it could get intense it wasn’t always. Sometimes it was just slow and controlled, their bodies tangling together, pressing as close as possible. They would touch and taste every inch of skin and whisper sweet words of affection. Times when the soldier would let go and surrender completely. That wonderful feeling that Tony could still feel tingling in his hands. The touch of those taught strong muscles relaxing under his touch.   
  
_“You don’t even know your doing it do you? The way you look at me and say so much with out using a single word.”_     Steve had said, leaning over him and just looking down at him, there faces a glow from the reactor.    
  
Tony would never get to hear that voice again. 

* * *

  
  
After the church, there was a precession to the cemetery.  Tony rode in the family car alone with Peter, the little boy was crying again.  Tony was just numb and held him tighter, softly shushing the whimpering child. He couldn’t say it would be all right because he didn’t feel right at all.   
  
Driving through New York to the small cemetery in Brooklyn, the place where Steve’s mother was buried. Tony thought it was only right.  The drive was eerily silent and cars pulled to the side of the road giving the trail of cars wide birth. Civilians left their cars and stood with hands over their hearts or saluting as the hearse went by. There were fire trucks with raised ladders holding up massive flags.    
  
In a strange way Tony was proud, this was what Steve deserved. At the same time, he hated it because it just reinforced the painful truth.   
  
America had lost its first Avenger.   
  
Tony had lost his husband.   
  


Peter had lost his father. 

* * *

  
The only public tear Tony shed was at the graveside, during the 21-gun salute.  A single droplet reveling itself from under his dark frames.   
  
A long-range photo of the billionaire’s pain would later sell for 80grand. The paparazzi evidently never took a day off.  
  
Not that Tony would have cared much in the days that followed. Everything he loved was now resting six feet beneath the soil.   
  
It was time to pick up the pieces and do the only thing he knew how to do, Tony Stark was going back to work, and hell hath no fury than a man with nothing left to lose.   
  


* * *

**“I don’t even know if I’m alive, without you now this is what it feels like.”**   
  



	6. Echo

 

 

**“ I’m out on the edge and I’m screaming my name like a fool at the top of my lungs, Sometimes when I close my eyes I pretend I'm alright, but it's never enough….”**

* * *

 

**March 7th 2016**

“You used me!” Steve was furious stalking up to Fury who did not appear to care for the other man’s aggression.

The former director stood firm, his visible eye hard with resolve. “I made a call Captain, isn’t that what you do?” He said with a tilt of his head.

Steve was enraged, how could Fury even compare this to any of the calls he made in the field. “I could have handled this!” he grit, fist clenched at his sides. Steve was holding back an urge to punch the other man. Everything in him rebelling against what little respect he used to have for the man. When Fury told him that the world had been under the impression that Captain America was dead for over six month, he lost it.

Fury justified the lie saying, “The world didn’t need some story book hero, an untouchable solider that stood in holy light, under a banner of honor and justice. Hydra and their allies had already turned the tide and they would have turned on you and your team. We knew this wasn’t going to end well so I just gave the masses something they could believe in.”

Steve towered over the other man glaring at him, Fury not moving an inch. If Nick was nervous at all, he wasn’t showing it. “And what was that, a martyr?”

“No Rogers, I gave them a hero fighting for revenge; I gave them a cause and a man to lead it. You know all about that Captain, only there were no back dancers for this one.”

That’s when it all fell into place, this wasn’t just about him. His supposed death was just a catalyst, it was true that tragedy could bring people together, but it’s what they could do after that Fury was after. It wasn’t the patriotism or joint solidarity, it wasn’t waving flags or donation drives. None of those tame feel good feelings that came with rallies and songs about the good old red white and blue.

Fury had a bigger picture, a plan that would create an army in an instant. The people would lose one solider and gain a harbinger. There would be a call to action so angry and so loud no one would ignore it, it would light a fire and force the people to take a stand against the forces that would seek to lead them into the darkness.

Hydra and their Allies could hide in a world where the masses stuck their heads in the sand. However, turning the anger of an entire nation on them, all in the name of vengeance. They would have nowhere to hide; no veil to conceal there acts when the public took their blinders off. Moreover, who better to tap into a world that ran on technology and social media, than a man who built the finest tech in the whole world?

This was the end game, the all or nothing play that would bring a century’s old foe to its knees. There was going to be collateral damage.

“Tony….”

* * *

Steve stood in front of the surveillance monitors, watching as a very different Iron man took on the enemy. Watched the flash of newsreels that depicted Tony Stark as “The Avenger of death” Clad in jet-black armor, as he took no mercy on the battlefield. The dark figure ripping into vehicles, haling out hydra agents, and crushing their skulls. Flying into the air with a screaming man and dropping him to the pavement below.

Rogers watched clips were War Machine had tried to intervene and Tony raised his repulsor and fired on his own friend. He was sure that Colonel Rhodes was fine, the hit had only been enough to damage the armor nothing more, but still. That wasn’t Tony; none of this could be Tony. The violence, the rage, this couldn’t be him; there had to be a mistake. This had to be some kind of nightmare that he would wake from because Tony Stark could never be broken like this.

Even worse, was the public’s response, the cheering in the street, children wearing black iron man masks with glowing red eyes? Civilian’s who took to the streets dragging out and beating individuals accused of being ‘hydra sympathizers’. Steve wondered how many innocents had been harmed or even killed from wrongful accusations.

He wanted to end Hydra more than anyone, wanted to destroy the evil men that lead such organizations, but not like this. The streets running red with blood in his name. This was wrong.

“What have you done…?” Steve whispered, blue eyes filling with the flash of ghastly images, his husbands eyes empty and expression blank as he walk out of a burning building.

“What have you done !?” He said again, this time stronger as he turned. Horror open on his face.

Fury tuned his back on the solider, coat furling behind him. “I won the war Captain Rogers.”

Steve looked once again to the screens, his heart breaking as he watched his husband act with out mercy. To see a once warm and caring man reduces to the one thing he despised … A merchant of death. “But at what cost”

* * *

Left alone with his thoughts, Steve knew this wouldn’t be over until all the cards had been played. He had heard the heavy locks on the door fall into place when Fury left. Nick was not a stupid man; he wouldn’t go to the trouble of locking doors that Steve could simply yank of the hinges.

The Captain would not be leaving anytime soon, and for the first time in over 80 years, Steve felt completely helpless.

* * *

**“I just wanna feel alive and get to see your face again.”**

 


	7. The sound of silence

 

**“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again…”**

* * *

 

**Aug. 30th 2015**

He stopped looking at the time hours ago, or was it days. Everything felt like it just melted together in an endless parade of sympathy cards and well wishes. He just needed to get away from it for a while so he went were he had always felt at peace. Only know even is refuge held memories that plagued him.

Tony sat in his workshop, staring coldly at the half-empty bottle of bourbon next to his wedding photo. He tilted the frame back and forth, the gleam of the overhead lights whiting out the faces behind the glass.

If only it were that easy to forget.

If he could simply angle his mind in such a way that he would not remember Steve’s face, the sound of his voice, the texture of his hair, the way his skin smelled and tasted. The recognizable pattern of his footsteps. All the little things about that man that had become so ingrained into his life.

Everything that was missing from his life now.

With a sharp intake of breath Tony blinked away unshed tears, he needed to get back to work. The others had not been supportive of this new Tony Stark. They said he should step back, take a breath; think of what Steve would have wanted.

He couldn’t do that, because if he did his heart would break. He didn’t want to think, he wanted to do something. Break something…someone…yeah, someone needed to pay. Someone needed to hurt as he hurt, he could not sit back and let those bastards get away with what they had done. The team had no idea what Steve would have wanted, they didn’t know him like Tony knew him. The more he thought about it the more that cold heavy feeling spread.

They didn’t know… they couldn’t know. Natasha, Tony couldn’t even look at her anymore. She had been with Steve, she who was an assassin- THE Assassin - if you asked any of the avengers. She should have noticed it was a trap, should have done something. Tony never said that though, not directly anyway. The billionaire did his little passive aggressive little song and dance. He always said just enough.

Then again, it wasn’t just Widow that Tony blamed, he blamed himself to. So he made a choice, he was going to fix this, that’s what Tony Stark does right? He fixes, he repairs, and he builds.

Stark industries rejoined the weapons game, and Iron man rejoined the skies.

Tony had enough of waiting for the fight to come to him; enough of megalomaniac would be super villains. He wanted to take the war to the source and obliterate it before anyone else had to die.

Before someone else had to feel the bitter sickness of waking up alone in bed meant for two.

* * *

 

“Daddy…”

Tony turned to see Peter standing at the door, the inventor glared at the ceiling a moment - Jarvis should have warned him.

The little boy rubbed his eyes; they were puffy and red from crying. Peter had not been sleeping and been extra sensitive since the funeral. Those first few days after, he clung to Tony fearing his daddy would disappear just like his papa.

“What’s the matter Champ?” Tony really couldn’t do this tonight.

“I miss papa.”

Tony felt his eye twitch. Not now, he couldn’t do this right now.

“Pete we talked about this buddy, now back to bed.” Tony got up from his workbench staggering just a bit; he pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his head. “Daddy is working; we will talk in the morning ok?”

Peter shifted and hugged his blanket he had drug down with him. “That’s what you said yesterday.”

“Damn it Peter I said go to bed!” Tony did not mean to yell, his nerves were just so frayed. He regretted it immediately when he saw the child flinch, losing balance tripping back against the door. Little eyes filled with tears. “Petey sweetheart I’m sorry.”

“NO! I want Papa!” The tantrum erupted and the shrill screaming was too much.

Maybe it was the alcohol; the lack of sleep, or maybe it was just that Tony could not do this alone. He grabbed his son by the shoulders and shook him. “Well we can’t have what we want! He’s gone and he’s never coming back!”

Tony didn’t realize he was crying until little hands pressed his wet cheeks. “Why daddy…why” the little boy hiccuped and wept.

He didn’t have the answer, it was a question he often asked himself and still he had nothing for it. Suddenly here he was lashing out and being the kind of man, he never wanted to be. The kind of father he had promised himself he would never be.

This had to stop, he had to protect the only thing in this world worth protecting.

Tony was ashamed. “I don’t know baby… I don’t know.” He hugged the child to his chest and let Peter cry himself out. He whispered apologies and rocked the simpering child back and forth. Swearing that he would never yell again. Promising it wasn’t Peter he was upset with.

It was clear to Tony that he could not do this without Steve; he’d call Pepper in the morning. He had to do what was best for Peter.

* * *

 

Peter didn’t understand why he had to go stay with Aunt Pepper; Jarvis didn’t say that his daddy had to go away for work. That was usually when he would stay with her. That morning his daddy packed his things and Peter went with Uncle Happy. He asked his daddy when he was coming back but Tony just kissed his forehead and told him he’d come get him soon.

Somehow Peter knew his daddy was lying, just like when Papa said he was coming back. They were liars and that hurt. Peter didn’t want to be left alone, because who would take care of him? What if Auntie Pepper couldn’t keep him? All these things were so hard to understand and made his heart hurt.

He really wished his Papa was here.

* * *

 

Tony was changing and now sending his son away from the tower. Someone had to do something and as usual, Pepper Hogan was there to try to talk her friend and employer out of things once again.

“Tony stop this, you’re being reckless and it’s going to get you killed. Then what will happen to Peter? I know you’re hurting but you can’t do this.”

The inventor looked up from the wall of holograms; it was the new suit design. “Steve was never reckless Pep; he was so by the book that he could have written it and look what it got him. Now if you don’t mind I have a revenge to plot and unlike those catchy proverbs, it actually is better served hot. Piping fucking hot and preferably up the rectal cavity of my enemies.” Tony spun around moving components left and right, the old suits seemed to bulky now; he needed more speed and more silence. He wanted something that was build to kill.

The woman tightened her fists, “I’m sorry this happened, but you’re not the only one that’s in pain.”

Tony turned on her then, his dark eyes cold and expression grim. “Your right, that’s why I have to do this, I am protecting my son and this is how I do it. Therefore, unless you want me to fall apart you will back off because this is me coping. Trust me Virginia... You don‘t want to see me not coping.”

The use of her first name sent Pepper back a step. “I have seen you Tony; I have been there for everything so just please, let me be there now. Please I’m begging you just don’t do this, there has to be another way.”

Stark let out a harsh laugh, “no, see you used to be there Pep. I loved you remember - but it wasn’t enough. It was enough for Steve; it was always enough for him. He was the one that was there when things went to shit after you left, he was the one that picked me up off the floor - literally and forced me to get my shit together. I’m not saying this is your fault, hell you are one of the few blameless people in this. What I am saying is don’t you dare presume to know me like you used to.” Tony turned away moving his hands over the suit specs, “ I don’t even know myself anymore, so just do me this one favor and keep my boy safe, even if its from me.”

Pepper felt a lump in her throat, there was nothing she could do for this and in a way, she believed in Tony‘s reasoning. Believed in his right to be angry, to be sad, and to hate everything for a while if he wanted to. Still, part of her would always love him and it was that part that wanted him safe. “You’re all Peter has Tony, I know it isn’t fair. I will protect him; I wish I could protect you to.”

Tony looked at her tearful reflection in the steel cabinets. “Thank you Pep,” Tony smiles sadly and for old times sake tipped his head forward, “That will be all Ms. Potts.”

Pepper shook her head, stepping forward to touch his shoulder tenderly, “very well Mr. Stark.”

* * *

**“In the naked light I saw, ten thousand people maybe more. People talking without speaking, people hearing without listing, people writing songs that voices never shared, and no one dared… disturbed the sound of silence.”**

 


	8. Hide and Seek

**“What the hell is going on… the dust has only just begun to fall”**

* * *

 

**March 7th 2016**

Steve sat with his head in his hands. Still processing everything he had seen, the man he once loved so consumed with hate and rage. He knew how this would end for Tony, how it ended for any man who feel that far. This would be the one thing that could destroy Tony Stark.

The soldier thought about their son, Peter had already lost a family once, now thinking that his father was dead and now his other father angry and distant. That’s not what either man wanted for their child. Steve knew how it felt to grow up without a father; while there was no deny he loved his mother and Sarah had don’t everything to care for and protect him, Steve always felt different. He knew Tony had not had the best upbringing where Howard was concerned and they had both been so adamant about things being better for Peter.

How was he going to deal with the fallout from this? Would it be too late?

Sitting back staring at the blank ceiling he wanted to scream, punch holes in walls and do anything and everything to get out here and stop this. “I should have known, I should have seen it coming.”

“You’re not perfect Captain, close... I mean I always thought so. But not completely perfect.” A voice called from the now open doorway.

As Rogers looked to the face standing there in the entry he had to blink to be sure. This was getting stranger by the moment. “Phil?”

The agent smiled raising a hand in greeting as he righted his posture from leaning against the door-frame. “I know this might come as a shock. Came as a shock to me honestly. It’s amazing what medical science and a little SHIELD underground tech can do.”

Steve rose to his feet, not exactly sure what to say but the worlds stumbled out. “But Fury said...”

Coulson shrugged his shoulders. “Well Captain I think you know by now that what Nick says isn’t always the truth. Of course, it took a while for them to... repair things as you might imagine. So at the time I suppose it was for the most part accurate.”

A line formed between the blonds brow, “Great, so what exactly is true anymore? Since faking deaths is so popular these days you’ll excuse me agent if I’m not suspicious. Are we even fighting Hydra or did Fury do

all this to take control himself?”

Phil held up his hands in surrender, “No, we are defiantly fighting Hydra and its alliances. I will admit I was not on board with this idea, but I haven’t exactly been doing much fieldwork lately for obvious reasons. When I have its all been so covert not even you or your fellow avengers knew about it.”

“What about Natasha or Clint? Would you lie to them to, would Fury?” What Steve really wanted to know...was if they lied to him. They had been with him at the time of the ambush, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that one of them could have doubled back and followed him. In fact no one would be better suited to track him than a member of his own team. That didn’t mean that Steve wanted to face the possibility that one of the them… people he saw as family. That they would have betrayed him like that, hurt Tony and Peter like that.

Coulson looked directly in his eyes, no deception “No, no one knew about me or this project other than those inside this facility. Even Ms. Hill has been in the dark until recently.”

Steve let out a breath looking down at his hands. It was a weight off his shoulders to know that those closest to him were still innocent in this. However, that did not change one startling fact. “I need to get out of here, you have to help me Phil. You have to know how wrong all of this is.”

The agent pulled up a chair sitting heavily upon it. “I always tried to live my life with no regrets. Even when I went after Loki alone - I had no regrets with how that went down. I thought I was going to die and I was completely at peace with that. I thought, I did the right thing... Since I have been back the right thing has been harder and harder.”

“Then help me. I need to end this Phil, it has to be me.” Steve was practically begging. Something Phil never thought he would see. Then again, he thought he’d never see Stark and Rogers get along let alone wake up to find the pair married. He could see it in the Captains eyes, a man desperate to right a wrong, and a man full of regret. It didn’t suit Steve.

“That’s what Fury said. No one man has all the answers Captain. That’s how wars start.”

Steve shook his head, “That’s what I’m trying to stop. Do you think Tony will stop with Hydra and AIM? He won’t, I can see it and I can tell it will never be enough. All this anger and pain will tear him apart and turn him into something so much worse and so much more dangerous. When that happens none of you will be able to stop him.”

Phil considered the soldiers words, they were thoughts he too had. He had seen the footage, hell Coulson had been on ground zero after one of Iron Mans raids on a Hydra complex. Stark was devolving into something less than human. The man was becoming a rabid animal. “Would you Captain? Could you stop him?”

“If you get me to him now maybe, I want to believe it’s not too late. I want to believe my husband is still there, that what he feels for our family and me will be enough. But if you don’t if this continues then no, and I will not kill him, I can’t and I won’t.” Steve’s eyes glistened, the thought had crossed his mind that if he couldn’t stop Tony, if he was too far-gone. 

Steve didn’t want to think that he would have to be the one to take on the man he loved, to have to hurt Tony to save him. He wouldn’t be able to live with that.

“Looks like I have no choice then. Should we get some air Captain?” The agent put out his hand for the other man to clasp. Rogers did so smiling, clapping one of his large palms on the suited man’s shoulder.

“Good to have you back Coulson.”

* * *

 

**“This can’t be happening, when busy streets a mass with people would stop to hold their heads heavy.  
**

 


	9. The Vengeful one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning- violence, gore, blood
> 
> Burce’s quote is from the philosopher - Marcus Aurelius
> 
> Tony’s quote is from boxer - Muhammad Ali

**September 3rd 2015**

**“I’m the hand of god, I’m the dark messiah, I’m the vengeful one.”**

* * *

**“Sir, you have been awake nearing 78 hours and counting.”** Jarvis’s voice filled the workroom as Tony stood back from the new armor.

“Ya know what they say; time waits for no man... In fact I think it’s time for a test drive.”

**“Sir…”**

“Jarvis …I will mute you.”

From the outside looking in one would think in was just like Tony, hours spent working, tinkering and perfecting. Only this was not like him, this was manic to the point of violent. He had spent a few days redesign one of his more ‘sporty’ models from a few years ago. Trimming off weight of the body; enhancing the thruster systems; adding a few more hand-to-hand combat features. He wanted to get up close and personal and make it hurt.

The result of Starks blood, sweat and tears - ‘Vengeful- I.’ Sleek and black, the finger sculpts had been elongated into claws and reinforced. The gauntlets could not only blast through feet of concrete but could now shred feet of steel like butter. Tony got some satisfaction with that, he wanted to find the man responsible and gut the sorry sack of shit like a fish. Vengeful was faster and quieter than any other armor before it. A beautiful Valkyrie of death, it was almost poetic in the lines of the body. Like futuristic muscle car meshed with a bullet. The most telling feature was a shatterproof glass casing to the right of the reactor on Vengefuls’ chest plate. Beneath the glass shone a very special piece of metal - Steve’s dog tag.

Tony wanted them to know, to carry around the proof of the heart he no longer had right out for all to see. He wanted them to see that name when he killed them.

* * *

 

It was just past midnight when Vengeful hit the skies. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, for Tony regaining the suit controls felt just like that. A satisfying caress of electoral impulses.

“J, scan the police ban and cross reference with CCTV and current warrants by facial recognition. Violent crimes.”

**“Sir, might I suggest that your talents may better be served by contacting Colonel Rhodes and notifying him of your official return to service?”**

Tony scoffed, “that was an order Jarvis. I wasn’t looking for suggestions.”

**“My apologies Sir, I was under the impression you valued my opinion.”**

Images flashed as the AI went silent, although it seemed less like acceptance and more like irritation on Jarvis’s part, if that were possible. However, Tony did not care. He had enough of people telling him how to feel or how to heal his broken heart. He wasn’t like them, no book club or widower’s message board was going to some how fill the hole in his very soul.

Nothing was going to satisfy quite like revenge.

The name and face of a one Greg R Beck came up on the HUD.

Wanted for Assault and battery of a minor child. Breaking and entering, Aggravated assault.

Sought in connection with a shooting in 2008.

Pulling up the police report for aforementioned shooting, Tony knew he had a winner. Apparently, someone broke into a house upstate thinking it was empty. It was not. A woman was shot and killed in front of her four-year-old daughter. The police never found the suspects.

Beck had been arrested a week later fleeing from a burglary a few blocks over. While they could not pin him for the shooting it self he claimed he might ‘know a guy who was bragging about it.’ That turned out to be false and Beck had since skipped town.

“Well look whose home, Greggy needs a welcome party.” Tony said darkly kicking his boosters into high gear.

The new armor was silent as it sliced through the night air, its jet-black lost in the dark alleys. It was a deadly thing of beauty; years ago, Tony would have salivated over such work and would have been sure to show off even during battle. He had not spared the suite a glance since stepping into it, it was functional that’s what mattered. It was his warhorse, and this was a war.

Vengeful hovered silently what looked like an abandoned old motel, initial scans located three human heat signatures inside. The prudent thing to do would be to wait until Beck exited the building. After all Iron man still had the element of surprise.

That was what the very Steve like voice in Tony’s head said. That half whisper that still held so much strength. “To bad fearless leader… You don’t get a say anymore.” Tony muttered closing his heart of to the memory.

Isolating the signatures to one room in particular, Vengeful locked on and the repulsor blast sent the filthy windows and tangled miniblinds blasting inward.

The screams started then, the cursing, the crying as the armor stepped into the exposed opening. Beck was on the floor staring dazed, covering his ears from the blast. There was a woman crawling away through the door, her legs were bloody through her ripped fishnet stockings. A hooker maybe, wasn’t that charming.

The third…well they were dead. Poor sucker must have been right by the window, collateral damage.

Beck held up his hands begging and pleading, still to shocked to understand anything other than the fact the room was a mess of debris and now he was standing on the business end of a metal monster.

“Whatever man just take the cash, fuck take the bitch! Please!”

Tony sneered and picked up the sniveling criminal, “You killed a woman, a mother, a wife in front of her child. Didn’t you.”

Beck shook his head at first but then the gauntlet began to tighten around his throat. “Y-Yes! I-I’m Sorry!”

“Sorry? You’re sorry?” The inventor’s voice came distorted through the speakers; it pitched low and metallic like a demon. “Her husband had to bury her, her kid will never know her and you’re sorry?”

Beck did not have a chance to answer, not with a hole the size of a fist shot through his chest courtesy of the suites new precision blast.

Tony thought he would feel better, why did he think he would feel better.

**“Sir, the police are en route.”**

Leaving the filthy roach motel all Stark could think about was, ‘it’s not enough, there are a million sorry sacks just like Beck, just like the men who killed Steve. There is Hydra, the remnants of AIM. It wasn’t enough this… Vigilante justice, Tony was a man who looked at the bigger picture. He couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until every last one of them was dead.

* * *

 

The next morning the gossip rags and internet feed were a buzz, “The return of Iron man?” “Has the Avenger come back for revenge?”

Apparently, that charming young woman in the 7inch heels made it out of the motel. He had to hand it to her, she must have made it past the cops and when straight to sell her story to the highest bidder. Considering the mags and web sources, she maybe could afford a clean pair of panties with the cash she made.

“Should have held out, for more.” He said wistfully reading the gossip bloggers.

Of course, it didn’t take long for his former teammates to come banging on his door asking what he was thinking.

When Bruce saw the Vengeful armor-standing sentry in the workshop, he nearly turned green and tore up those nice new chinos. Instead, he settled for waving his arms in a quazi threaten manner in his Angry-high school-counselor voice. “You know you killed two people last night! Dose that even bother you? If you want to use Jarvis to locate criminals and inform the authorities that’s one thing, Hell if you want to call Natasha and tell her, but this can’t go on Tony. You are not judge and jury!”

“Brucy, so nice of you to stop by. So how are things?” Tony spun around sipping his coffee, Irish of course…actulay more booze than coffee at this point.

The good doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t oppose you coming back you have to know that. I just think you need some time to process…”

“No Doctor Banner, See I have processed. “ Tony interrupted standing from his workbench and walking right into his friend’s personal space. He almost wanted Bruce to hulk out. Maybe he could see if Vengeful had the same chops as the Hulkbuster. “I have processed, I have self examined and reevaluated. I have meditated and fuck me even prayed. I did all that transcendental bullshit you love to preach about for about two seconds and then I realized something. None of it will bring Steve back!”

“This won’t either.”

The inventor’s arms flexed and nostrils flared, “No it won’t. But ya know what it will do? It will make sure that no one else feels like this.”

Bruce scrubbed his palms over his face. This was absolute insanity. “I can’t stand by and watch you destroy everything including yourself.”

“Then get the hell out of my tower!” Tony shouted, vengeful began to form around him and Bruce took a step back.

“Tony…”

Banner could see the darkness around his friend’s eyes that hollow hungry look. He knew very well what desperation looked like.

“I SAID GET OUT!” the gravel metallic voice rang through the armors faceplate.

“Oh Tones…ok, I’ll go.” Bruce didn’t feel the same irritation he had before, now it was just sadness and pity. His shoulders dropped and he left the workshop pausing to look back for a moment. “ _The best revenge is to be unlike him who preformed the injury_ ‘, remember that Tony.”

“Awesome Aurelius, I got one for you ‘ _You kill my dog, better hide your cat._ ”

* * *

 

Later that Evening as Tony was once again pouring over Intel, this time hacked from various government agencies, a call came in.

**“Sir, You have a call from Nicholas Fury.”**

Tony looked over to the incoming screen; old patchy had been off his greeting card list for a while now. What with the downfall of Shield, and since rebuilding of it under Director Hill. Of course, that little matter of the former Shaft cosplayer/master spy being dead as far as the US government was concerned. They all knew better of course. It would take grenade up the ass to put Nick Fury down. “Answer it J”

“Stark”

“How ya doing Ghost Pirate, down in Miami will all the other retired killers and Spy friends drinking sangria and watching golden girls?”

“Cute, I see the recent tragedy hasn’t spoiled your sense of humor. Point is I have a job for you.”

Tony wanted to snap back, wanted to say Fury didn’t know shit about what happened or how he feels. Then it occurred to him, maybe he dose. “No more boy bands, I’m out of that line of work. Strictly a solo artist these days.”

“Always the Diva, good thing that’s exactly what I’m looking for. Center stage performance at a Hydra base in Serbia.”

“I’m in.”

* * *

**In the blackest moments, of a dying world. Look inside and see what you’ve become.**

 


	10. I see fire

**March 7 2016**

**“If this should end in fire, Then we should all burn together”**

* * *

 

They were leaving; Steve felt the buzz under his skin at the prospect of seeing Tony again. The last time he felt this way was the day the team brought Bucky home. A thick worry that settled into the pit of his stomach that said ‘what if I can’t save him’, felt like a stone of lead. However, they had saved Bucky, even if he wasn’t the same. He was whole and functioning and now had a new life and oddly enough, Barnes had been a pivotal part in saving another lost soul when he met Loki.

People could be saved; Steve had believed that for so long. Maybe it was his mother’s voice or that weekly Mass. Something in him said there had to be something left to redeem when a good man did bad things.

He had always been a believer in the greater good, things like - don’t leave a man behind. He wasn’t going to leave Tony. Not again. Steve wasn’t going to watch another person he cared for fall and be forgotten. Left to become a monster.

Filled with determination the soldier clenched his fits and straightened his back. If Fury’s men wanted a fight, he’d damn well give it to them.

“Should I be worried that you’re willing to betray Fury so easily?” Steve said as he stood behind Phil watching the agent enter a code into the door panel. It still burned him that Fury had lied to them about the other man’s death. There had been so much hurt in the wake of that loss. Yet without it, the avengers may have never gotten their act together. It was impossible to weigh what if’s against morals now. Tony always used to scold him that the world wasn’t just black and white. Just because something felt ‘wrong’ to Steve, it didn’t automatically make it wrong. Perception was a hell of a thing.

Fury knew that, just as if Tony knew it.

Perception could start or finish wars; it could bring people together or tear them apart. It was all in how you spin it.

Phil smiled looking over his shoulder, “I never thought he’d betray you. I think it’s the sort of thing Nick can get over. He knows how these things work.” Spoken as nonchalant as one might borrow a cup of sugar.

They left the small room where the Captain had previously been held and entered the narrow hallway. It felt too cramped with its steel walls and floor, their footsteps to loud. Almost as if, the passage way would come alive and crush them. If ominous was, the look Fury was going for then he made it.

“Shouldn’t there be more guards?”

“This is an underground secret facility Captain, not even all of SHIELD knows about it. Fury runs this place on minimal, meaning along with myself there are four field agents that come and go who I handle personally. There are seven strike force agents or as I like to call them “the muscle brigade.” They are all so terrified of Fury they don’t ask questions.” Coulson said as they entered a room at the end of the hall this one looked to be a room for security footage. The guard on duty was kicked back with his feet on the consol and hat down over his eyes. Well into his 40 winks, such job pride.

Coulson took a small device from his pocket; it looked like a cross between a tazer and a pocket watch. “Nifty little toys we have now, wouldn’t you say Steve?” The object touched the sleeping guard’s neck jolting the man out of his chair and into a twitching heap on the floor. “I really like calling you Steve.”

Looking out of his peripheral at the captain, while he was deleting the security footage and shutting down the system, Phil noticed Steve poke the guard with his boot. “Not to worry, he’ll be fine. I think. Anyway shall we?”

“I’m a little disappointed that it’s this easy.” Steve had to be honest, he was a super solider and aside from thick walls and doors, they were not exactly proactive in their handling of him as a prisoner.

“To be fair Steve, you were unconscious for months. Honestly, I don’t think Nick anticipated you waking up for at least another few months. I wasn’t even aware you were here until December. I had been out in the field cleaning up after Stark.” The agent said pulling a gun from the downed guard and handing it to Rogers.

“Cleaning up? I get a distinct feeling I don’t want to know, especially if it was anything like the news footage.” A shiver ran down the soldiers’ spine thinking back to the grainy video images of the black almost demon looking amour stalking through burning debris.

* * *

 

**December 9 2015**

_“ETA three minutes, Stark is no longer on site. By the way he left a hell of a mess.” Skye’s voice crackled over the com line as the jet touched down._

_Fury’s order came down “Send in a hunting pack; take any live assets into custody. Although I doubt there will be any, as usual. I want all Intel, everything from hard drives to pocket scraps. If someone wrote down a hooker’s number in a match book I want it on my desk then sanitize the entire site.”_

_Coulson took point waving the trio of agents behind him as they left the aircrafts safety and stepped into what was left of the former Base. Fury’s new little attack dog had sharp teeth and a single directive these days. Not that he could blame him._

_“Alright, check for anyone alive detain them and prep them for evac and transfer. Home base will want to interrogate so let’s make sure we have someone not screaming about the devil this time?”_

_“Well maybe get someone to give Ironman his old paint job back so he doesn’t look like a metallic reaper and we wouldn’t have that problem.” one of the agents remarked setting off to into what was left of the side entrance._

_Looking around Phil could already tell this wasn’t going to yield anything more than a few chard hardrives and a stack of bodies. Alternatively, pieces of bodies. If it was anything like Starks previous M.O’s. The agent really wondered if Fury knew, what he was getting and had a distinct feeling there was something just under the surface. He had been doing some digging and things didn’t gel._

_The way Fury behaved after the death of Captain Rogers for example. Nick was a cold man but he wasn’t that cold, it wasn’t so much that he was giving something away it was that his composer seemed too natural. Coulson had known this man, worked with him and for him for years. When they lost a man in the field Fury may not have shown it but he still had little tells. Like that glass of bourbon on his desk that lingered for a month or so. The way he always made sure to send roses to widows, only Phil knew about that. Queen Elizabeth roses, always._

_He sent Lilies to Tony Stark…_

_“Agent Coulson…I think you should see this …oh god…”_

_That didn’t sound promising, Phil walked over the rumble until he rounded the remnants of a wall. The young agent that called him was currently looking away trying not to vomit._

_“Well he hasn’t lost his flare.” Phil commented dryly gazing down at the body. The body’s face was destroyed - melted beyond recognition. Coulson could see why the younger agent was having a hard time, you never do forget the scent of burned flesh or the sight of skin and fatty tissues melted into a bubbling mass, it looked like a Halloween mask about to slide off. Additionally, the throat had been torn out, the seasoned agent would bet those were done last. The main event stared at the feet, from the ankles down there wasn’t much left aside from blood-spattered mash in the dirt and smoldering flesh up to the knees. Those new repulsor, Coulson would guess, the lower stomach was sliced open and on closer inspection, the spine was exposed from the body being grated against the concrete. The motion has made an arch of red smeared over where the body lay._

_Almost like a rainbow. He thought, “Somewhere over the rainbow indeed” kneeling down to go through the man’s vest pockets. “Why you…what made you piss him off in particular.” Coulson muttered. Upon searching the man’s pockets he had his answer, it was sick irony really… A Captain America lighter on a Hydra henchman._

* * *

 

Steve didn’t say anything when Phil finished. Some were in his all American idealistic brain he couldn’t fathom Tony doing that. He had seen the footage but even then - it wasn’t like this. Not the man who bathed their son, played hide, and seek with Peter and the lab bots. Not the man he married and slept beside at night, that man was warm, funny, and generous.

Words from Steve’s past suddenly came to mind, long ago when they were hunting the Winter Soldier. “He’s not the kind you save… he’s the kind you stop.”

It wasn’t until they rounded the corner were two armed guards were stationed and Phil pulled a small object from his pocket and motioned for him to wait.

The glint of dark blue metal in the agents palm said it all. A lighter with Steve’s Shield on the front. It was slightly dented and he knew….

* * *

 

**“For if the dark returns then my brothers will die”**

 


	11. Hero

  
  
**November 25 2015**  
  
 **“I am just a man; I’m not super human, someone save me from the hate….”**  
  
Coming home after a mission was not as it used to be. There was no revelries or joking, no pizza in the common room. …No Steve to peel out of that deliciously tight uniform. No rough hands that could turn to satin on his skin. No full lips brushing his jaw and smiling against his pulse point. It felt offensive to the senses that he could still feel it if he closed his eyes tight enough. The muscle memory creating a tingle at the base of his neck. Looking down the hall out of the corner of his eye - still expecting to see blue eyes shining in the low light under dripping wet blond hair.  If he tried... Really tried, if he drank just enough, Tony could see him standing there. One hand poised on the wall and a towel hanging dangerously low on lean hips. How Steve’s skin always looked a little pink because he tended to turn the hot water on full blast. The little freckles on his shoulders or scar just behind his ear hidden along his hairline. Something before the serum, something only Tony knew about.   
  
Tony could map every inch of that man just from memory alone. He could tell you Steve’s favorite spot to be kissed, and how sensitive the backs of his knees were. The little ticklish spot below his navel, Tony knew all of it.   
  
Now coming in was a silent affair, the armor would open and disassemble - parts heading to be cleaned and any damage to be addressed by Jarvis’s diagnostics. Small things tended to by the bots and anything larger would get Tony’s attention later.   
  
He would walk with heavy footsteps and blank eyes to the bar. Pausing as he poured a stout of whiskey, a smear of red on his knuckles drawing the brunettes attention.    
  
It wasn’t his, No… this was a result of a new ‘upgrade’ Stark felt like he wasn’t feeling enough in the suit. He never spoke the words and did not answer his AI’s questions to the gauntlets design.   
  
The addition of thin reservoirs in the finger joints, it wouldn’t affect performance - not in any wide margin. However, what it did do was allow him to feel his environment more keenly.  When the clawed fingergaurds sunk into a body and the blood bubbled through the wounds. The warm sticky substance would pool around his fingertips.  The subtle warmth growing cold as the life left their eyes.   
  
When Tony watched a man die, he could feel it to. Part of him said ‘that will make it enough.’  ‘I will feel like I have done some justice.’ It did not do that at all.  

* * *

  
Standing in the shower furiously scraping the dried blood caked under his nails…he only felt like a monster. Tony could still smell the smoke and the burning flesh, nothing made it better. Now the nightmares just melted together into a mash of images. The heat of the desert now burned with flames, the vast dark void of the portal became dead men’s eyes.  When the last time he slept was, really slept? He didn’t know, maybe he didn’t deserve it…not yet.   
  
The coppery smell never left, the tingling of his raw skin calling out to the atmosphere for protection only mimicked the longing for a touch that would never come. A comfort of strong arms and a steady voice that was just distant memory. A memory that was also twisting into nightmares. There were nights when he would see Steve standing at the foot of the bed - blood bubbling out of his moth and reaching out. Tony would shoot up screaming with the lingering disembodied words of his husband’s broken voice ‘you weren’t there when I needed you.’   
  
“Lower the penthouse temperature.”   
  
“Sir, that would be below your usual presets and if I may add... uncomfortable to your current state of undress.”  
  
Tony glazed at the filthy water swirling on the shower floor and down the drain, “You don’t know anything about comfort Jarvis…you’re not even real.”   
  
That was probably the cruelest thing Tony had ever said. While his AI butler may not have been real, the sentient helper knew well the concept of care and affection. In his own way, Jarvis exercised those emotions to the occupants of the tower. To Tony, Peter, and in his own way the mourned the Captain’s loss.   
  
“As you say Sir, enjoy the cold... Perhaps it is fitting.”  
   
Tony didn’t comment either way on that. Jarvis was right, he was colder now.

* * *

  
“This has to stop.” Clint said throwing a magazine down on the coffee table. The glossy cover featuring ‘Iron Vengeance’   The archer ran a hand back through his hair, “he looks like a fucking zombie and I can’t even tell what side he’s on anymore.”  
  
“Perhaps we are a bit hasty in our judgment...” Thor started but was cut off  
  
“No he’s right.” Bruce turned away from the window, arms wrapped around himself. “I think we should be happy we are only dealing with Tony right now.”  
  
The Asgardian nodded, “My brother has elected to keep Sergeant Barnes close in his distress. I have his world he will not let him leave Asgard. However, is not our friend right in his wish to punish those responsible?”   
  
Natasha stood up to refresh her drink, speaking as she poured herself a vodka tonic “Punish is one thing, if Stark wanted to he could have stopped at the Hydra he leveled back in October. We all would have helped him. He doesn’t want help or even to stop Hydra and Aim. He just wants a body count to even up the scales.”  
  
“Jesus Christ” Bruce mumbled from behind his hands. “He’s going to hate us after this you know that right?”   
  
“Better hate us and be alive right?” Barton said.  
  
They had made the call, everyone was coming to try and confront Tony. Some weird intervention, Bruce didn’t like the idea of cornering the billionaire when Tony was so clearly unstable. Nonetheless it was the best idea they had.   
  
Pepper and Rhodes arrived, Happy was down in the lobby entertaining Peter with a puzzle in the security room.  All they had to do now was ambush Stark.   
  
“This is going to suck…”  Bruce said crossing his arms.  
  
Clint couldn’t help but try to lift the mood. “That’s what she said.”  
  
The archer was swiftly smacked upside the head by Widow.  “Inappropriate.”   
  
When the elevator opened, everyone held their breath. Tony stepped into the common room looking around skeptically. “Ok…so this is either the world’s most boring party or …” he paused noticing the papers in Rhodey’s hands. “Oh fuck me it’s an intervention. No thanks I don’t have a drinking problem, I swallow liquids just fine.”    
  
No one was laughing.    
  
“What? Barton? No ‘that’s what she said?’ I’m disappointed in your lack of frat boy humor. Did someone take away your dartboard and make you all pouty?”  
  
“Tony this isn’t a time to joke.” Pepper said, standing up from the sofa. “Please come and sit and listen to us. We all care about you.”   
  
Tony ignored her heading into the kitchen to take out a bottle of scotch, “Don’t you remember Pep, this is what I too I’m immature, I'm volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others.”  
  
Rhodes followed his longtime friend laying a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder, only to have the content jerked away. “Tony just…”  
  
“Don’t fucking touch me? You got that and by the way, nice kiss Judas. Coming here to tell me how to run my life. Et tu Bruce?” Tony called into the living room. Banner not meeting his eyes. “Yeah thought so, ya know it’s funny all of you seem to know what’s best for me, and how to help me. Where the hell were you when Steve was out there dying? Barton, you and your sister assassin pal just stood around with your thumbs in your ass while Hydra killed my husband. So you will all kindly understand if I say fuck you and fuck your opinions.”   
  
“Tony you have to see that this is crazy!” Rhodes wrung his hands. “You are out there like some damn angle of death, and look at you! Have looked in a mirror lately Tones? Have you? I have seen you look like steamed shit after a three day drunk and even I have to admit you look worse now.”   
  
“Sweet, thanks platty pus that’s just really touching, but unlike a teenage girl with self-esteem issues. Telling me I look like crap won’t get you laid” Tony said tossing his glass and opting to drink straight from the bottle.   
  
The bottle however was torn from his hand by a large blonde. Thor looked at him not with anger put pity, which was worse.   
  
“You are killing yourself Anthony.”   
  
“Good.”   
  
Tony’s words hung there in the silence until Pepper spoke softly, “What about Peter, don’t you care at all what happens to him?”  
  
“Pepper don’t” Tony’s warning fell on deaf ears.   
  
“No Tony, no you’re going to listen even if the truth hurts. I am leaving your son with you tonight because he needs his father, and you are going to sober the hell up and take him to the park and spend time with him tomorrow instead of hiding away in that damn lab or going off slaughtering people and trying to get yourself killed!”   
  
Tony squared up his shoulders looking around the room. “Yeah, see I thought I had friends… people I could rely on. I see I was mistaken. Jarvis, find me a babysitter.”   
  
“I’m afraid I cannot Sir.”  
  
Tony glared at the ceiling, “What! No, you do not say no to me I made you now find me some god damn day care!”   
  
“He’s not going to answer you Stark.” Natasha said holding her phone punching in some code as the Tower began to lock down. “You placed protocol remember, right after you adopted Peter. That if or Steve were ever compromised in any way Jarvis’s number one priority would be to protect Peter. That’s what he’s doing. He’s protecting him, because there’s a little boy down stairs who needs his father. You would know all about that wouldn’t you Stark?”   
  
It was a low blow and she knew it. Tony couldn’t even look at her.   
  
“Let’s go,” Natasha said ushering everyone out.   
  
“Sir, young Master Peter will be sent up to the pent house in fifteen minutes.”   
  
Tony didn’t reply to the AI, in his mind they were all against him now. He was just trying to do something right, to do what he needed to. Why couldn’t they see that?

* * *

  
“Daddy?”   
  
Tony looked up from the sofa to the little voice coming from the elevator. Peter had his backpack and stuffed rabbit in his arms. “Over here peanut.”   
  
The little boy grinned and ran toward his voice only to skid to a stop staring at Tony with wide eyes beginning to brim with tears.   
  
“Petey what’s wrong?” Tony knelt down, he hadn’t seen the little boy in months and now Peter was crying. Well he wasn’t father of the year that was for damn sure.   
  
“A-are you sick? A-are you gunna die like papa? A-are you gunna leave me Ple-please don’t leave me daddy!” Peter dissolved into sobs and Tony couldn’t believe what the child had said.   
  
Did he really look that bad?   
  
“No buddy no, oh baby no.” He pulled the little one into his arms and thought for a moment Peter had gotten bigger. Kids grow so fast and he had missed it.  “Shhh. Its ok, I’m right here I promise. I’m so sorry buddy, Daddy was just working that all. I’ve been working really hard that’s all.”  
  
Peter sniffled and clung to his neck, “Papa said it wasn’t good for you to work so much. You have to sleep and eat good.”   
  
Tony smiled weakly, “Yeah, I haven’t been doing that very much.”  
  
After a while, Tony picked Peter up and got him settled back into his bedroom, they ate pizza and watched Jungle Book.  For a few precious hours, Tony could forget. Until that night when he put Peter to bed with the promise of a trip to the zoo in the morning.   
  
Then he was left alone in that big master bedroom. “I’m doing this for us Steve, for Peter, for you. I hope you know that. I just can’t let it go, I can’t.” Tony made up his mind, he would appease Pepper for a few days, but he had work to do. He could rest yet. He had to make sure that there was no one out there that could hurt his family. 

 

 

  
**“I need a hero….”**


	12. Lead me home

**“Lord in the darkness led me on my way…lead me home”**

* * *

  
  
**March 7 2016**

 

  
Coulson smiled and walked down the hallway, idly flipping the hinged top on the lighter open and closed. “Gentleman.”   
  
The guards snapped to attention nodding toward their senior agent. “Agent Coulson how are you Sir.” One of the men said.   
  
Steve almost felt sorry for them, they were just young soldiers brought into this. They clearly respected Coulson and probably Fury to. They were just following orders. Still they were between him and getting out of here.   
  
“Fine, was just about to step out.” Phil reached into his left pocket as though searching for something. Then his left before patting down his vest. “Huh, must have left my cigarettes in my office. I don’t suppose I could bum one off either of you boys. Been one of those days.”  
  
The young soldiers nodded one of them searching his pockets of a pack. “No problem Sir,”  
  
Steve knew what Phil was doing, he was watching the soldiers. Putting them at ease and then seeing how eager they were to make a good impression. The agent was testing them, formulating his next move. Let it not be said that Phil Coulson isn’t a dangerous man.   
  
“Thanks” The seasoned agent said walking between the two soldiers. There was a clatter as the lighter tumbled from his palm and onto the industrial floor.   
  
As predicted, both soldiers turned one kneeling don’t to retrieve the lighter. “You’ll need this.” The younger man said with a chuckle.   
  
The laugh would be cut short by Coulson lighting fast blow to the back of the young man’s head. The other solider could barely react as the agent pulled the pistol from the fallen officer’s belt before the boy even hit the floor. The butt of the revolver glanced off the second solder’s temple sending the young man clattering back against the wall.   
  
“That was impressive, boy will have helluva knot on his head when he wakes up.” Steve comments leaning down to check over the unconscious soldiers, pocketing the magazines from their weapons.   
  
“I call it a lesson in not to trust someone just because their wearing a suit. It might save their lives one day.”  
  
“Yeah, wish someone had taught me that one.”

* * *

  
They continued through the facility Phil used his key card to slip through what he called ‘safe halls’ “Fury is pretty paranoid now considering what happened to HQ.  We can take some of the evac routes to the security entrance. There will be two guards inside and four outside. Once we make it outside you will see several ‘abandoned’ freight containers. That’s where our ride will be.”   
  
The captain slipped around the corners following closely, “What about my shield?”   
  
“Stark has it, next of kin and all.”   
  
That mental image seared into the back of his mind. Steve imagines what that must have been like. To be given the shield after his supposed death. Steve remembered back in the day when had stopped in the war office, watching them packing up dog tags to be sent home just behind the notification telegraphs. In some cases that was all that was left of some boys who died out on the battlefield. When their bodies couldn’t be retrieved. He could never forgive Fury for this. Even if the man had had the greater good in mind – this was too much.   
  
“Right, of course”

* * *

  
**March 9 2016**

 

  
  
Natasha Romanov was sitting on a bench in Battery Park, having just gone on a morning run. She had been quietly staying just in the shadow of Stark Tower - keeping an eye on the owner. Her phone began to vibrate, glancing at the unknown number she swiftly moved her thumb across to accept. Not just anyone could get this number. Not even a mistaken dial could, there was the number and then a code one would have to use.    
  
Perhaps she was being assigned?  
  
“Hello”   
  
“Hello Natasha.” said a voice she thought she’d never hear again…not since the battle of New York.  
  
The woman’s eyes narrowed, mistrustful of the voice. Anyone could use a modifier, this had to be a trap. There was only one way to find out.   
  
“How’s the weather in Budapest?”   
  
“It’s warm this winter.”   
  
She let out a sigh, “you have a lot of explaining to do Phil.”

* * *

  
  
**“Heavens waiting upon up your door….lead me home…lead me home”**


	13. I'll be gone

**“Black shining oil this night is dripping down, stars are slipping down, glistening and I’m trying not to think what I’m leaving now.”**

* * *

 

**January 20th 2016  
**

 

It felt like weeks since he slept, since he bathed. Since he’d even seen his son.

He couldn’t see Peter anymore, not now, there was too much blood on his hands and Peter was too innocent.

Tony lied, he was a liar… he left Peter with Barton of all people…but maybe because Clint got it. Clint hadn’t said much during that little last supper intervention the rest of them had staged. The archer knew what it was like to lose someone you love. Clint knew what it was like to have to live with a ghost, and he didn’t say a word when Tony stopped by his apartment with Peter. He never tried to stop Tony when he left Clint just said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” and that was all.

Truth was Tony wasn’t sure about anything anymore. He felt like he was losing his mind, he could hear Steve’s voice, see his face. Like a specter in the fog - some terrible siren beckoning him to his death. Steve was everywhere and no where at the same time. A constant companion in these deadly days. It was a cold comfort when Tony thought about it.

Stark wasn’t a religious man, or even superstitious, yet he wanted to believe that Steve was by his side. That for a moment it was like old times when Tony dawned his red and gold armor. When they fought side by side.

Then the fog would lift and banish the daydream to dust. This wasn’t like those days, and Steve was gone. This armor was black like the clouds of smoke that rose from the fiery destruction Vengenful had caused.

He couldn’t find any pride in this, couldn’t feel anything now but pain.

There wasn’t enough to destroy, enough blood to spill to wash it away. Fury had been trying to contact him for the last three days, Tony just sat here motionless in what was left of a bombed out village somewhere in the middle of nowhere Europe. He wondered if this was what the Great War was like.

If Steve had to march through the mud and the mire of places like this, sleeping in fox holes while bombs whistled overhead.

Tony remembered the nightmares Steve had on occasion, he would wake up covered in sweat and fall out of bed. Mumbling things about Nazi’s, the Luftwaffe, and about the ice. Jarvis was good about calmly calling out the date and the time. Tony had the Ai do so for him after Afghanistan and again after New York. Tony often felt like he was poor imitation soldier next to Steve. Steve had seen so much in his time, things Tony knew nothing about beyond documentaries and history books. Nothing beyond faded memories of the look in his own fathers eyes on memorial day.

Steve also had the added sadness of being a part of ‘the last great generation’ but having to watch all his contemporaries fade away and die. While he stayed behind - ‘the man out of time’ as Loki had once called him.

Sitting here in the rumble marinating in his own filth, Tony wondered if he could have made it. He decided quickly that No, he was not like Howard, Steve, or Bucky. He would have made a terrible soldier. Assassin though? Yeah maybe he could have been that. Now that he looked around at the bodies added to his name.

Was that what he was now?

It seemed like too elegant of a term, it made him think of Natasha with her long slender limbs and deadly grace.

No… he was ….he was the human equivalent of the A-bomb. A wonder of science - built to destroy.

Was this the legacy he would leave for his son? Cap’s history would make a far better narrative for Peter to live up to. Not Tony and his sorry sack of co-dependent alcoholic shit.

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist….merchant of death. Check it out dad, I finally lived up to your name.”

Tony was beginning to wonder if when this was all over if he’d even be able to go home. Could he look anyone in the eye after this, Peter, Bruce, Pepper, Clint, hell any of them. This little family he’d made for himself.

Maybe he shouldn’t burden them with that.

Maybe, the best thing- the one thing he wanted when this was all done. Was to be with Steve again.

He took off the helmet and looked down at the beast he’d made himself into, ‘It’s going to finally be finished babe, everything that you worked so hard for. Then I’m done – then I’ll come home.”

* * *

 

**“It’s time you let me go….let me go.”**

 

 


	14. Devil’s Back Bone

**“What have I done, I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run.”**   
  
**March 9 2016**

* * *

  
  
Natasha tilted her sunglasses down the morning sun sparking the gold rim of the ray bans. Her gaze settling on the red corvette that pulled up into the trendy little café in Riverdale, Bronx.   
  
She picked this place because it was quiet and upper crust, the sad irony that Stark still owned his family’s old estate in Fieldstone not far from here- not that Stark had been there in ages. Or even been seen in days.   
  
Last word she had was Fury’s meeting with the man days earlier, things had pretty much gone FUBAR after that. To barrow the phrase from Rhodes, who had tried the intercept Tony the day after…that hadn’t been pretty.   
  
This little surprise was another wrench in the works, or maybe not if the looks of Lola’s white walls were anything to go by. There was a lot she didn’t know about, and had a feeling there was a lot more.   
  
She had expected Phil, but there was someone in the passenger seat. A man in a ball cap and shades his face was turned away but there was something  about the shape of his jaw. Something that made her fingers twitch around the paper tube of her overpriced coffee.   
  
Phil climbed out and raised his hand in greeting, his passenger exited the other side keeping his head down. His stature, the way he held his shoulders, it couldn’t. Then again, there stood Phil Coulson so why not.   
  
Romanov approached, her hands tucked into her jacket pockets, “ So, it must be resurrection Sunday. Not going to say hello to me Steve.” she wanted to punch them both, yet hug the breath out of them at the same time. Still the assassin kept her face passive and tone light. As though seeing two dead men was just another day at the shops.   
  
Steve looked up and wasn’t that a sight for sore eyes, he looked a little older around the eyes - tired and worn. Considering they all thought he was dead for the last seven months, not bad.   
  
“Hello Tasha, it’s good to see you.”   
  
“So, who wants to start explaining?” Natasha slipped off her sunglasses and latching them onto her shirt. “I’m all ears.”  
  
“Drinks on me then!” Phil clapped his hands, “Steve, latte? You look like an Americano kinda guy but trust me I think you’ll need the sugar.”   
  
Steve gaped looking between them, “I actually..” He blushed, “Tony always ordered me Carmel frapacinnos.. I like em.”   
  
The two agents shared a look, before Natasha shrugged her shoulders, “I could go for a frap.” 

* * *

  
  
“So that’s basically it, Stark’s been Fury’s personal nuke.. least until a few days ago. They had a meeting and it didn’t go well. To be honest I’m surprised Nick didn’t find himself sans-another eye. Tony isn’t exactly a conversationalist these days.” Natasha said leaning back in her chair.   
  
Phil had briefed her on the underground Shield operation and if Widow was surprised she didn’t show it.   
  
“I woke up a few days ago, do you think the meeting had something to do with that?” Steve asked, although he already knew the answer. If Tony knew he would have come to get him.   
  
“As for as Nicks concerned I’m sure it did, with you back in the picture he had to secure his interests. You woke up early and compromised his end game.” she replied taking another sip of her drink.  
  
Phil pulled out a phone and taped away at the bright screen that scrolled with various information. All to fast for Steve to get a peek at. “He’s closing in on something big, the bases and sleeper cells he sent Stark to before were just smaller parts of the whole. The idea was to get Hydra and Aim running scared.”  
  
“Like a bee hive…”   
  
Romanov pointed “Very good soldier, just like that. My guess he’s been smoking out something bigger. Send all the lackeys into a panic so that they tighten up security around big boss.”  
  
“in short” Coulson chimed in “Nick isn’t just cutting of the heads, he wants to burn the stumps.”   
  
It was all a lot to take in, the idea of destroying Hydra completely. It would be wonderful but… “Tony can’t do that alone… no one can.”  
  
The table went quiet for a moment before Natasha spoke up, “Before I might have believed you, but now it’s different. He isn’t who he used to be Steve. He attacked Rhodes not 48 hours ago, almost killed him.”   
  
“Christ Tony…” Steve held his head in his hands.  “Where is he?”  
  
Natasha pulled out her phone with a nod. “Clint, how’s it look?  Yeah.. Let’s just say the cavalries just arrived. Can you get me an ETA for Riverdale park?  Yeah that’ll work, oh and… see if you can get your hands on the Shield.. don’t ask just do birdbrain.” She snapped the phone shut with a soft smile.  “We roll out in 10, ever been to Kroyak mountains Cap?”   
  
“Can’t say that I have.

* * *

  
  
 **“Oh I just wanna take him home...”**   
  
  
  



	15. Blood on my name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When the fires are consuming you, and your sacred stars won’t be guiding you…I’ve got blood…blood on my name.”

**January 12 2015**  
  
Nick Fury knew when he had underestimated an outcome; he also knew when to make the hard choices. This was something that had been instilled in him through the years. Sometimes what was right was not easy and what was needed was not right. There was always going to be a loser, always-collateral damage. You had to weight the few against the many, and sometimes realize that a deal with the devil might be your best bet. If he had to become that devil to get the scales to balance… so be it.   
  
 He made a mistake by not digging deeper when it came to Shield, he sat back running the logistics of saving the world and never once questioned if the powers that be really wanted it saved. They say hind sight is 20/20, in the Triskelion wreckage he learned that lesson. The world council said they wanted better for the world but if their definition of the world was one united under hydra - he wanted no part of it. Fury didn’t just let in the wolf at the door – he fed it, he housed it and let it grow. This was a sin he needed to correct by any means necessary.   
  
The former director wasn’t going to have Hydra digging their claws in even deeper now that Shield had gone underground. He wasn’t going to have their sickness winning over the hearts and minds of the people. All the years he and others had spent out in the field, all the agents who died - it would all be for nothing if they lost now.  
  
Nick Fury made the hard choices.  
  
They needed something that would break the tide. Aim had joined up with Hydra and now they were using their numbers and influence to make everyday people question their government. Not that they couldn’t use a healthy dose of skepticism when it came to bureaucracy, Nick dint blamed anyone for taking a closer look at leadership. God knows he should have. The point was it wasn’t a true picture people were seeing. Hydra was playing cloak and dagger, a little bad press here, some anarchist influence there. Big brother wasn’t just shady he grew fangs over night and was out to steal firstborns.   
  
They slowly made themselves out to be ‘the voice of the people’ when really they were gas lighting an entire country. ‘Trust me’ says the left hand of a right handed killer.    
  
People were eating it up.   
  
Fury could see how this was going to end, Hydra would have its new world order if someone didn’t do something. The question was…what that something was.  
  
It was going to take a Hail Mary to bring this back around for the home team.   
  
The idea itself was purely accidental; he received a package to his office that should have gone to Phil. Coulson and his damn memorabilia.   
  
Yet as Nick sat there looking at the framed vintage poster circa 1945 of Captain America ‘in memorial’ he had an epiphany.   
  
After Steve put that plane in the pacific, it turned the war around. It inspired a nation to become their own heroes. The more he thought about it the more he realized that’s what they needed again. Even if that patriotism was all marketing and frills it was enough to give them an edge. To give them a cause, after they had that cause they would be ready to fight.   
  
They needed to make a sacrifice, but not really. Fury couldn’t go taking out an American icon all willy-nilly. It had to seem legit though. The best ops were so deep undercover you never even knew they went down. That’s what he needed.   
  
“Agent May, I’d like to see you in my office.”

* * *

  
 **August 13 2015**  
  
It took months of planning and observation with a small team, even Coulson did not know. For all purposes, in 24 hours Captain America was going to be dead.   
  
The nation was going to raise their stars and bars, wailing tears from every front porch across the heartland. It would take a week tops for every fading musical artists to put out tributes and every street artist out there to cover blocks and train cars with the chiseled visage of Steven Grant Rogers.   
  
RIP - Captain America.

* * *

  
 **September 3 2015**  
  
Tony Stark had been another part of this plan. The inventor acted exactly how Fury thought he would. The People had their martyr now they needed a champion. An avenging knight to come out of the flames and ashes… a new soldier. In truth Fury thought it would have been Barnes, however there was an Asgardian complication on that front. The winter soldier was now tangled up with a now ‘repentant’ trickster. And the golden kingdom was smart enough to keep the doors locked on their side to prevent a mad dog assassin from coming to get his pound of flesh.   
  
That didn’t mean Fury had no options, in fact. He couldn’t have asked for a better one.   
  
Stark jumped at the chance to rip Hydra a new one and not just in the way Iron Man always had before. This time it was personal and brutal, there wasn’t going to be any thing left.  Stark was a man on a mission, Pierce thought his Asset was ruthless? The Winter Solider had been little more than a drone; Fury had a one man kill squad - Iron Vengeance readily available.  
  
He could end this, Hydra, Aim, any of these little start up punks. It was an attractive prospect. Sure, there would always be corruption - but to cripple and destroy it on a global level?  He couldn‘t pass that up. Fury was making his move, “Checkmate mother fuckers” 

* * *

  
**March 6 2016**  
  
“Stark, we have a problem and I don’t like problems.” Fury said walking into the workshop. “How exactly are we suppose to get Intel when you go off half cocked on some mission I didn’t even approve?”  The lease on his favorite attack dog was growing thin and Fury knew it. He could see it in the inventors eyes, that hallow hungry look of a man who had been in the wind to long.   
  
Tony was having the bots cut replacement plates for Vengeance, the suit had taken a beating in his last little ‘trip.’ It was worth it though, he came by a particular piece of Intel and  now things were falling into place. “I don’t like being lied to.”  
  
Fury stopped in his tracks… did Stark know? …no there was no way. “Exactly what do I have to lie about.”  
  
“Kroyak, ring any bells Nick?” Stark turned, his face look gaunt in the over head lights. Shadows falling in the hallow of his cheeks and the shade of his brow.   
  
The billionaires once perfectly shaped facial hair had now over grown leaving the man looking wild. Once perfectly chaotic hair filled with expensive product - now sported a buzz cut. Gone was the joking air and teasing turn of phrase, what was left behind was utilitarian efficiency. Fury got his new soldier, his very own asset. The question was if he still had the reigns in hand.   
  
“It does, we aren’t there yet. Maybe if you took time to look over the mission briefs instead of going off your own information then you would know that. The Kroyak base is the end game Stark, one we aren’t ready to play yet.”  
  
“I’m ready Fury, I don’t need your permission. I never needed it.”   
  
“Stark.” There was warning in his tone, warning that even Nick didn’t believe. He couldn’t stop this man, not now. All he could do was fall back on the past and play on Stark’s emotions. “Is that really what Steve would have wanted, for you to go off and get yourself killed.”  
  
Tony stepped forward raising his chin in defiance. The light flooding his face to highlight the lack of sleep and care. “ Do you really care what Steve wanted? This isn’t about that anymore, it never was.” His voice calm and dark eyes dead.   
  
Fury had yet again underestimated.  
  
“It’s time for the end game, now get out of my shop before I put you out.”  
  
Fury’s nostrils flared, lips pressing in a tin line. “If you do this, take out the headquarters now. All that’s going to do is give rise for the remaining smaller factions to rise up. It might take them years but they will rebuild, that’s not killing Hydra that’s just cutting off the biggest head. If you recall that doesn’t work.”  
  
“I won’t tell you again Nicholas.” Tony slipped on the gauntlet. This wasn’t a threat it was a promise. 

* * *

  
  
Fury pulled away from Stark tower and made a call. “Colonel Rhodes, Stark is becoming a problem. You asked me to let you know before any drastic measures came to play. Well you can try and get a handle on him or  I will.”   
  
“Sir.” The female agent driving Fury’s car spoke up.  
  
“Yes Agent Johnson what is it.”  
  
“He’s awake.”   
  
Well things just got a lot more complicated.   
  
“Get me Coulson, time to bring in the team for welcome wagon day.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When the fires are surrounding you and the whole wide worlds coming after you”


	16. Mad World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: First off I wanna say I am not good at action but I try my best so don’t rip me apart or be rude if its not good enough.

_**“ I find it kinda funny… I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I’m dieing are the best I’ve ever had.”** _

* * *

  
**March 7 2016**  
  
“Whatever you’re doing with Tony, I won’t let you use him.”    
  
“The way I see it Mr. Stark want’s to go after the people responsible for his husbands death. Maybe you don’t realize this Colonel Rhodes, but we want the same thing. An end to tyranny.”  
  
   
Jim could still remember that first conversation he had with Fury. He’d asked only one thing ‘ if it gets out of hand, you let me bring him in’ Rhodes didn’t want some shield agents surrounding Tony with some high powered weapons trying to shoot the man out of the sky.  He had fought with Tony, flown with him, he knew all of Stark's tricks and he could bring down the suit with out hurting Tony. At least not permanently.  
  
Rhodes had hoped to settle this on land, but upon entering the workshop, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. Tony was no wear in sight and flight doors were open.   
  
“Jarvis, when did Tony leave.”  
  
 **“17 minuets and 39 seconds ago Colonel, shall I ready Patriot for you?”**   
  
Jim smiled, that was the thing about the Ai - once Jarvis liked you, and he was willing to bend some code to help you help Tony. Even if the AI were master wouldn’t be too happy about it. Thinking over the offer, using Patriot seemed like asking for trouble. It didn’t take a genius to know who that armor was modeled after. “Feeling nostalgic tonight J, how soon can I suit up War Machine with Tony’s current location in the GPS?” He asked, hoping Tony hadn’t blocked his access to the gps. It had been a concession back when Iron man was still on the front lines, that War Machine would have full access to location incase Tony was captured or injured and unable to call for help.   
  
**“Proceed to the formation pad Colonel Rhodes, and if I may say Sir… It is good to see you.”**   
  
“Thanks J.”  
  
That was good; Tony either didn’t think about writing out that bit of protocol or subconsciously didn’t want to. It was a good sign. It meant there was a possibility he might be able to end this peaceably.   
  


* * *

  
  
Just an hour later found the colonel hot on his friends iron heels.   
  
“Tony! Tony damn it will you listen to me!” Rhodes shouted over the com, he didn’t want to do it but at least they weren’t in a populated area. “Tony I will shot you do you hear me!”   
  
“Then do it.”  
  
War machine locked on and the shoulder torrent whirled as rounds flooded the firing chamber. “Don’t make me do this, we can talk about it. Just come down and talk to me Tones, I know your hurting but…”  
  
“DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT HURT RHODES!” Vengeance turned on a dime and fired with out warning.   
  
Jim barely missed the shot, alarms blaring inside the suit as he faltered to find balance.  Part of his brain couldn’t even comprehend that his friend just shot at him. Not just a warning either, if he didn’t take evasive action then…well it wouldn’t have been pretty. They all let this happen , he should have come months ago to check on Tony but he was busy … busy, it sounded like such a thin excuse right now considering the hell Tony had gone through. Not just his friend but also his godson.   
  
The thought of Peter being shuffled between Pepper and Happy, Bruce and Natasha,  then back to a father who wasn’t emotionally present enough to care for him more than a few days at a time. At the same time, it made him angry; Tony knew what it was like to grow up like that.    
  
“What the hell are you doing Tony? Seriously! Ya know what. Never mind, I wont talk to you about hurt because you do know all about it considering how much hurt you’re putting your own son through.” It was a low blow. Maybe that’s what Tony needed to see straight.   
  
“Nice try Jim. Shock tactics? To bad, I already know I’m a piece of shit. Peter is taken care of, he will be better off trust me. Now, you have two choices, 1 - you turn that old bucket around and let me work.  Or 2 - I kill you.”   
  
It hit him cold, “You don’t mean that Tony.”  
  
Vengeance chest pulse glowed a fierce red, “You really want to find out?” 

* * *

  
  
War machine slammed into the ground and struggled to stand, inside the suite red lights were flashing and warnings popped up all over the HUD. Still Rhodes wasn’t going to give up.. “Tony ..Just  listen to me.”  
  
“I’m done listening Jim, now stay down!” Vengeance landed, the black armor was nicked and beaten but still in better operating shape than its steel color counterpart.   
  
He couldn’t do that, even with the pain his side and the heavy feeling of dread settling into his chest, Colonel Rhodes staggered to his feet and flipped up the helmet visor. “ Please… Tony, it doesn’t have to be like this..”  His heart broke for his friend because now he could see, he could see everything he and everyone else had missed about Tony.   
  
Tony was headed down a path there was no coming back from, a path that will leave his friend in a pine box. More frightening than that, was that he could tell that Tony knew that. Knew and just didn’t care.   
  
“It does have to be this way Rhodey…” Tony lifted his hand the red in his palm glowing with deadly promise. “Don’t make me kill you.”  
  
“You won’t, your friend Tony. I know you are still in there somewhere.” Jim got to his feet and walked slowly toward his friend, it was a foolish thing to go but it didn’t matter. Reaching out he took the armored hand lowered it. “ That’s it, lets just calm down and talk ok?”   
  
“I’m sorry Jim…I really am, but your friend is gone. Time you learned that the hard way.”  
  
He hadn’t seen it coming, the punch to the temple of the helmet send stars across his vision before everything faded to black.

* * *

  
  
When Colonel Rhodes woke up he was laying alone in a field. Tony’s AI speaking through the remaining systems that War Machine currently had intact.   
  
**“I have contacted emergency services Colonel, I would advise you to stay where you are. You have sustained a skull fracture and been unconscious for a short time, you vital signs are stable but you have other injuries including lacerations and damage to your ribs.”**  
  
“Where’s Tony.”   
  
There was a pause and Jim thought perhaps the suit had finally given up the ghost, but then Jarvis’s voice returned.   
  
**“Sir has shut of GPS access to my system and is currently manually controlling Vengeance. I’m sorry Colonel.”**

* * *

  
_**“Look right through me …look right through me…”** _   
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art is mine, drawing armor is ..hard be nice.


	17. Unsteady

**“Hold on, hold on to me cause I’m a little unsteady.”**  
  
 **March 10 2016**  
  
Snow swirled through the air like one of the tiny globes that that sat on Peter’s dresser. Only this was real, there was no smiling Mickey in his wizard ropes orchestrating a parade of straw brooms. No Lady Liberty in winter, this was not a dream one could shake in the palm of their hand and turn the music key underneath.   
  
He could feel the frigid wind through the suit as Tony stood on a rocky peak overlooking the base. The stone walls masked in drifts of snow. Still with the sensors, Tony could pick up human heat signatures even from this distance. There were over a hundred hydra operatives, possible inhuman among them. Not to mention those affiliated with AIM who every well maybe armed with extremis. Someone would have to be crazy to take this on alone.   
  
None of that mattered to Stark, there was only one objective.  
  
The end game…   
  
Maybe now he could find some peace, maybe it would be enough. Tony pulled up a photo from the memory system, looking at the image with a painful throbbing in his chest. It was just after they adopted Peter, they had the photos made and for some reason this had been Steve’s favorite. It was black and white with only subtle touched of color. The blue of Steve’s shirt, blue light of the reactor and the soft blue blanket wrapped around their son.  He could never go back to that; he didn’t deserve to hold his son when his hands were stained in blood.   
  
He had a plan though, a plan to clean that blood from his hands. He would destroy hydra right at its root, take out as many as he could and then…then he would self destruct the suit from the reactors core. The explosion would leave nothing but a smoking crater. The snow would keep falling and soon…there would be nothing but the smooth white mountain side.   
  
Like nothing was ever there, like Tony Stark never was.   
  
“Pete will be better off,” he said to himself glancing one more at the image. “Pep will be a good mom, and Hap he’ll be a good dad. They will give him a normal life, a good life.”  A small voice in his head said no… said Peter already had too many pictures on shelves of the people he loved who died. He was just a little boy, he’d lost too much.  That voice that sounded so much like Steve, pleading with him to turn back.    
  
He couldn’t. “I’m sorry… I have to make it right. They took everything, I have to end this.” 

* * *

  
The suits sensors began to flash, indicating an incoming flight signature, It was the quinjet, and Tony scowled at the reading and looked to the skies. They must have used cloaking to get this close; thankfully, hydra tech wasn’t as good as his was.   
  
“Someone didn’t get that this party was invite only.” He said, looking over to where the plane flickered into view. The black metal now dotted with lines of frost. The bay doors began to open, the mechanism faltered for a moment as the cold air hit the hydraulics.   
  
He could see a pair of dark blue boots in ready stance. Something seemed… too familiar, then strong legs and …the shield. “No…” A star emblazoned on the figures chest. “No….”  
  
This was his imagination, a horrible nightmare. No one would be stupid enough to try to pull this kind of a stunt like wearing Steve’s uniform in front of him. 

* * *

  
“I don’t know about this, maybe we should try the coms one more time, I don’t want him to shoot us.” Clint said as he began to hover the jet nearby.   
  
“Just open the bay doors do it now.” Steve said already unfastening his seatbelt and heading toward the back.   
  
Ever since they entered Siberian airspace, Steve had been practically vibrating. His hands fidgeted against his knees, imagining all of the horrible things that could happen if they didn’t arrive in time. What if Tony had attacked the base, what if the forces were able to overwhelm him…what if they…NO. He squeezed his eyes shut and rebuked the thought. When they spotted the base and started looking for the armor, it seemed to take even longer.    
  
Finding it was more or less letting Tony finds them. Natasha explained that they would get a ‘ping back’ when Stark's sensors picked them up. Steve didn’t care how they did it.   
  
When they located the Vengeful armor, Steve didn’t need any more time. In this case, he’d take a page from his husband’s playbook and just dive in.   
  
Natasha nodded and they engaged the door. The captain stood taking a step forward as the wide bay doors opened. He could see Tony, that black armor standing out like ink on a page in the frozen landscape. He had to believe that this would work, that he could get through to Tony somehow. 

* * *

  
This was a nightmare…   
  
Tony looked to the visors read outs, Human signature body temperature just above normal even in this climate. Height, weight, all analyzed and then the read out turned blue - Identification Complete: Steven Grant Rogers-Stark    
  
“No. It can’t. This isn’t real.”   
  
“Tony!” The specter shouted his name and came walking out of the quinjet. Approaching him with the shield over one arm and gloved hand raise. “Tony Listen to me, I know what this looks like, but just listen.”  
  
“IT LOOKS LIKE IM FUCKING CRAZY!”   
  
Steve… no the …not-Steve, cringed. “You’re not crazy, You were lied to. I was lied to.”  
  
Stark help out his palms and powered up the repulsor. “You stay back! I don’t know who the hell you are but you can’t be Steve, you cant because he’s dead! I buried my husband you hear me! I buried him and I swear I will vaporize your ass if you say you’re him.”   
  
The soldier stopped, “Tony, did you ever see the body? Didn’t you think that was strange?”   
  
Steve was trying to appeal to the rational part of his partners mind. Tony was a numbers person, he was analytical and surely, if he really thought about it he could see the wholes in the story.  
  
The tactic was a good one, the because the more that Tony thought about it…no he hadn’t. They said it was bad…that he didn’t need to see that. The story had been that Steve was shot; there was a shield operative that had seen it go down.  A good woman that Hill said she trusted. After that the building exploded, Hydra made sure the super soldier was finished. They killed Steve, burned him.  How many nights had Tony woke up screaming wondering if Steve had been alive when the fire got to him.    
  
“No… I…I didn’t but…” his jaw clenched. They were trying to trick him.  “I told you!” The blast shot out in a brilliant red beam.  
  
Steve got the shield up and dug his feet into the snow. Still the blast forced him back a good 8 feet. “Damn it Stark!”   
  
From there things disintegrated, when Steve looked up Vengeful was barreling toward him. Steve dropped back and slammed the shield up to bank the side of the suit.   
  
“Tony stop!” he shouted. He glanced over to were Natasha was holding Clint back from running out and joining the fray. He waved his hand for the bay doors to be shut. He had to do this alone; no one else could get hurt.   
  
A rapid fire from the gauntlets rained down and Cap used the shield to block the powerful blasts. “I’m not going to fight you Tony!”  He shouted before running for cover while Stark circled back, He needed to get out of reach of the blasts and force Tony to ground the suit. If he got him on equal footing then maybe…  
Tony followed the not-Steve letting lose a barrage of small rockets. Unfortunately, the imposter was hunkering down and not making it easy. Stark landed on a peak intent on blasting the doppelganger out of his little hidey hole. When the shield came flying out of the rocky crevasse and slammed into the suites right booster before ricocheting back.   
  
….they were good, not just anyone could handle that shield…only a super soldier. “That you Barnes! Didn’t get enough Stark blood on your hands? I would have thought if anyone had respect for Steve it would have been you, or did your little magician boy toy give you the make over? I wonder how reindeer games will feel when I ship you back to god land in a box… See how he likes it.”  
  
“I know you don’t want to believe it Tony but its me! Fury lied!” Steve came out of the small cave holding the shield at the ready. He thought he timed it right, if this suit was like any of the older Ironman models that would be enough to take out at least one half of lower propulsion. Tony could still get of the ground but it would be unstable.  If Stark were looking for serious fight, he wouldn’t risk it.   
  
Sure enough, Tony fired up the suit and the right boot sputtered and smoked. Enraged the Vengeful armor used its remaining booster to launch at the Captain.   
  
The pair exchanged blows and it killed Steve to do it, Bashing the Shield against the face plate between blocking metal clad fists. All the while shouting for Tony to stop.  Finally, the solider was so fed up he put every ounce of strength into knocking his opponent backward.   
  
Stark fell stumbled back and soon took boot to the chest. The he tumbled backward and down a short embankment. The not-Steve coming down after him. He held up the gauntlets to fire but then the shield struck again. Looking up at the shining scorch and scratch covered red white and blue forces a sob from his throat.  “No… just…..just kill me already! Stop looking like him, stop using that fucking shield!”  
  
The shield pulled out of sight, the not-Steve was straddling his chest, breathing hard with red wind bitten cheeks. Tears in those so real blue eyes. Why would they do this…why would they be so cruel…?  
  
“Tony…..damn… just…” Steve unbuckled and pulled off his helm, tossing it to the side before prizing his fingers under where he knew the release catch fro the visor was. Hoping it would be the same on this armor as it had been on those before it. Sure enough, the plate released and he was looking down at Tony, there was a look of confusion at the action. The soldier smiled, “See, only I would remember how to peel you outta one of your tin cans… please Tony.”  
  
Steve looked down where his dog tags where encased in now cracked glass over the heart of the armor. He placed his palm there, “What do I need to do to convince you it’s me. I didn’t want this, Fury… he wanted to end hydra and he did this. I would have never been away from you, from Peter, if I could have helped it. I told you, I promised you that I would always come home.”   
  
“but you didn’t come home…you didn’t.” Tony looked up and god he wanted to believe. Then If that was true, if all of this had just been an elaborate lie. Look at everything he had done since. How could he live with himself ever again?  
  
The gloves came off next; he needed to touch Tony, needed to feel his skin. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, as soon as I was awake…I thought” He swallowed the lump of fear that crawled up his throat. “I thought it happened again, I was so afraid that I would have missed 70 more years. That would come back and you would be gone or …or like Peggy was. Or that Peter would be an old man and hate me for leaving you both. I came to find you as soon as I could Tony, you have to know that.”  He said touching the inventors face.   
  
“Tell me what I said..” he blurted out, “ If.. if you’re Steve, tell me what I said in your dressing room before we got married. Tell me exactly what I said to you.”   
  
Steve smirked, “As I recall there wasn’t much talking, and my coms are on and I don’t thing Tasha and Clint need to know the details.”   
  
Tony  frowned. “Say it, tell me what I said.” Steve wasn’t wrong about the rest of it, but anyone who knew him could have guessed something like that.   
  
Steve leaned forward and rested their foreheads together, and that just broke Tony’s heart being so close to this man. If this wasn’t Steve…if this was some kind of ploy to bring him in… there’s no way he could come back from this. From having these feeling so close and it just being a game.   
  
“You said, ‘I have never loved anyone or anything the way I love you, if ever anyone says I don’t have a heart their wrong…because its you.’ and I said  ‘ then I better be more careful, …”  
  
Tony stopped him with a kiss before muttering the rest of the words with tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, “ better be more careful.. because I never wanna break your heart.”   
  
“That’s right, I’m here.. I promise you I’m here..”  
  
Tony held him so tight, burring his face in Steve’s neck just breathing him in. He was there, he was really there, really alive. Maybe that hurt all the more, because now it hit the inventor… all the hell he had been through. All the hell their family had been through. He wanted to scream or cry - mostly he wanted to wrap his hands around Fury’s neck.   
  
“It’s ok…I’m gonna take ya home.” Steve said pulling away just enough to get his arms around his husband’s waist and help the genius to right the heavy armor.   
  
The com in Steve’s ear began to crackle as the pair made there way out of the rocky ravine. “Cap, we got company! Seems Hydra heard you two love birds having a domestic!” Barton shouted.  
  
Steve cursed and pushed Tony up the embankment a head before hefting himself up, “Tony, get to the quinjet. We brought one of your old armors just incase, I don’t think the one you have on is going to be functional enough to fight.” Steve said looking over to where Coulson, Natasha and Clint where lined up picking off the quickly advancing troops. There wouldn’t be much time.   
  
Tony looked at him fondly once more, “I never thought I’d be happy to hear you telling me what to do…be back in a shake sweet lips.”   
  
Steve rolled his eyes and let the shield fly - knocking back a row of approaching combatants. His adrenalin thrumming through his veins and his team together and now Tony at his side. They where gonna give Hydra hell..  
  
  
 **“If you love me…don’t let go.”**


	18. Shoot to Thrill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I am..not great with action so I had a friend help me with outlining the action in this, she’s awesome! Check her out on wattpad - ReneeIrish.

**“Shoot to thrill, way to kill… I got my gun at the ready, gunna fire at will.”**

**March 10 2016**  
  
A swarm of snowmobiles and jeeps breached the hill; this was the largest installment of Hydra they had seen to date. The loud roar of the engines cut through the air sounding like a swarm about to descend. The team readied themselves for the assault, boots digging into the powdery snow.   
  
The freezing air did nothing to cool the thrill of fight singing through the Captains veins. All those months spent asleep left him wired and wanting. From all the stress and drama, he needed to hit something!   
  
“Here they come, Tony air support, I’ll take point on ground, Phil, Clint, Nat flank and try and thin out the first wave.”  
  
“Aye Aye Captain!” Clint shouted with a salute  
  
The snowmobiles close in opening fire as the team splits up to divide forces. Even with the months apart, they all work like a well-oiled machine. Directions flow over the coms as enemies are displaced one after another. Stark goes airborne and there’s no surprise when the familiar red and gold of the Mark 17 ‘heartbreaker’ with its blaring audio system.   
  
“So Tasha pulled my baby Hb, that’s nostalgic of you. “ Stark commented as he fired rockets, Heartbreaker was armor specialized for intensive firefights.  From top to bottom, 17 had been designed to withstand firepower and mass amounts of damage. Not to mention the over-sized repulsor output in the armors chest.   
  
He could hear the smile in her voice, Widow was one to plan for the worst and then compensate for the best. “What can I say, I’m sentimental.”  
  
He moved over their heads to get behind the approaching troops firing toward the Hydra agent’s backs. This tactic proved essential in parting the troops as some turned around to chase him.  
  
“Operation divide and conquer in effect sweet cheeks,” Tony chirped over the coms.   
  
Steve shook his head as he too lured a large group by running to the east. As expected, the move pulled the attention of a good third of the auto-mounted soldiers. Rogers then spun on his heels with the shield at the ready to engage them, smashing into the snowmobiles as they crested the snowy dunes.  The Shield flew through the air knocking several other minions off their feet. What ever he couldn’t hit or slam into got some old fashion hard work when the soldier dug his feet in and slammed his palms down on the hood of an approaching winter vehicle. The rider trembled trying to unholster his weapon.   
  
“To late son, should’ a stayed home by the fire.” Steve said as he proceeded to throw the snowmobile and rider.

* * *

  
Clint and Natasha flank their group of soldiers while Coulson took center.  The archer began targeting the machines and providing cover for his teammates while his assassin counterpart moved swiftly in to finish off stragglers with her bites.   
  
“So Tasha, I was thinking building a deck out at Lara’s ya know, and maybe an elevated playhouse for the kids. With one of those rope ladders”    
  
The two chatted over coms as it this wasn’t a possible life or death conversation.   
  
“Could do a slide too.” The widow quipped kicking a solider in the throat.   
  
Clint pauses to think that over when a loud boom to his right sent a creeping Hydra officer flying. “Do I gatta cover you’re ass while you daydream Legolas?” Tony snarked.  
  
“Language” Cap chimed in, cringing after realizing what he just said. Why did that keep slipping out!  
  
Barton laughed as he loaded another arrow. “That again? Seriously?”

* * *

  
The Avengers moved as one force, pushing forward against the rush of soldiers and pushing them back towards the base. Amid the chaos, the Hydra agents began shouting over their radios, behind them the ominous turrents engaged.   
  
The rapid fire set down upon Avenger and Hydra alike.   
  
“Heads up!” Tony shouted firing the RT chest bean at the left torrent. The blast took out the massive gun and rocked the building. The second torrent on the far right of the base wall whirled to life and the main gates opened.  The bases jeeps and mobile artillery moved in.   
  
“Tony watch out for those tanks and take out that torrent!” Steve crouched behind his shield as the bullets sprayed the snowfield.  
   
“No problem sweetness!”  The billionaire returned dodging a shell fired from one of the tanks.   
  
“Sorry Tin man can’t let you have all the glory” Clint commented drawing back his bowstring and losing an explosive arrow at the turrent. “Hey Nat, you think the playhouse needs a sandbox?”  
  
“You may wanna go with a traditional ladder, rope ladders can be dangerous “Natasha commented as she and the Captain engaged the oncoming jeeps in tandem. A rocket is launched whizzing past her as she quips about Barton’s weekend projects- earning her an odd look from Steve. “What? …he get’s excited when it’s his weekend.”  
  
“Natasha’s right, I’d go for spiral staircase myself.” Phil chimed in as he pulled a gun from a fallen hydra agent and climbed into a jeep after tossing out a body. “If its metal it also adds to resell value. Have to think about future property values.”  
  
Unfortunately, despite their joint efforts team was starting to get pushed back by the overwhelming forces.  Steve realized they needed to get this together; he didn’t like not having eyes on all of his team so he called out over the coms for them to regroup.   
  
The command went out and the small group of heroes began to tighten their ranks. Steve still hadn’t heard from Tony.  
  
“Stark fall in! “  
  
Steve looked to the sky and watched in horror as an RPG, clipped the suit.  Tony spun out and bounces off the ground "yeah, good idea Capsicle" said the billionaire as he stood up trying to shake off the disorientation.   
  
“Tony what’s your status?”  
  
“Don’t get your briefs in a bunch honeypoo, daddy’s ok.”  
  
Enemy jeeps swarmed around flanking them, Lower turrents emerged from the base walls to begin long-range barrage attacks and the tanks moved in. This wasn‘t going to be easy. A terrifying thought entered the Captains’ head.  
  
They might not make it out of here.  
  
“I got it ... an elevator!” Clint said smacking his forehead.   
  
Steve deadpanned “how does that help us?”  
  
 “No, no, for the playhouse” The archer reiterated… “We are actually fucked.”

* * *

  
However, even in the darkness there is light, and this light just so happened to be the Bitfrost.   
  
The boom from column of iridescent light striking the earth sent up a wall of steam and shook the mountainside.   
  
 “DONT GO INTO THE LIGHT CAROL ANN!” Tony crowed over the coms. “Jarvis, old buddy old pal; can I get some sexy comeback tunes for Point break, Reindeer games and our buddy Buckster?” 

“I suppose Sir, since you asked so kindly… and uncharacteristically.” The AI returned with a slight air of a front. Considering Tony had been blocking his own AI for weeks now.  
  
The fog of flash steam settled in the now scorched earth, the approaching hydra agents stopped in their tracks when faced with the God of Thunder and like wise the God of Lies with the former Winter Soldier.  
  
Bucky looked over to Steve with a little nod. “I see your done playing possum punk.”  
  
“ALLITERATION! Good job Robocop!” Tony commented.   
  
“Friend Steven! Hiemdall spoke of your return and my brother and I rushed to the aid of our Shield brothers!”  
  
“That’s nice Thor but …Hydra!” The Captain shouted pointed to the now not so awestruck soldiers surrounding them.   
  
“Of course! We shall speak at the feat of victory to follow!” Thor said giving his hammer a swing and obliterating an approaching tank.  
  
In an instant, the heroes where back in the thick of it, Tony moved to back up Thor in destroy the heavy machinery. Clint, Steve and Natasha go after jeeps. The archer shooting the jeeps drivers and heavy gunners, Rogers muscling his way through with the shield and Widow batting clean up on stragglers and kicking drivers out of their seats.   
  
Phil snatched a few weapons and took flank were Barnes was stationed with a sniper rifle, the agent covering as the soldier took out the remaining turrets.  Loki, who was at the brunette’s side didn’t appear to be doing much of anything.   
  
“You…Son of Coul…I killed you” He commented pulling an emery board from his armor and tending to his nails.   
  
“I got better” Phil spoke offhandedly loading another magazine.   
  
The lie smith seemed to accept this, leaning against Barnes back, “I Love the weather …don’t you dear? Sooo Wintery gets me all…”  
  
“Enough” Bucky glared over his shoulder. 

Loki nearly purred, “There’s that rage I adore”  
  
Coulson looked over at the pair, noting the way the former mad prince was draping himself close to Hydras former Asset, clearly the choice to send Barnes to Asgard for treatment had some… unforeseen consequences. “So you two…”  
  
“Yep.” Barnes said adjusting his scope as the turrents exploded in the distance.   
  
“ok then…”

* * *

  
As they stood in the now ruined snow field looking at the fallen troops (who were being assessed by Coulson’s team that arrived at the end of the battle) the team regroups with congratulations on their tongues.  
  
Even with all the cheers and now special teams arriving to sweep what was left of the base for information, there was one spot of stillness.   
  
Steve ran his hands over the armor, gears whirling as the billionaire inside was set free. Tony stood there a moment shivering in the under suit before large familiar arms wrapped around him. They didn’t say anything just then. They just breathed, It wasn’t until Tony felt the hitch in his soldiers chest did he mutter any semblance of word. “It’s over now…It’s over now.”  
  
Part of the inventor wondered however, was it truly over? As the adrenalin began to ebb away and he felt the painful cold biting his skin. Maybe this was just a new kind of hell, a kind where he had to look in Steve’s eyes and see the reflection of what he had become looking back.  
  
 **“I’m gunna get you down! YEAH YEAH YEAH!”**


	19. I'm in here

**“Can you hear my call… are you coming to get me now? I've been waiting for you to come rescue me. I need you to hold -All of the sadness I can not…Living inside of me.”**

* * *

  
The snowfall was already starting to cover over the remnants of the base. Blankets of white disguising the blood and ash with every frozen flake. Steve suspected that by morning nature would have already reclaimed the area entirely. He of course would not be here to see it. With the adrenaline of the fight beginning to drain away from his muscles, the cold felt more pronounced. Alternatively, perhaps it was simply old memories trying to claw at the back of mind.  Whatever the case there were more pressing matters.   
  
Calm was beginning to settle around the team, as much as it could at the end of any fight, they always had that tingling kind of static about their bones. Like they were all waiting to see if the peace was real or if something else was going to come up from the depths and swallow them whole. It would likely feel like this for the next few days until the calm truly settled in.   
  
 For now, it seemed all was well. it only took moments for Tony to flair up with worry and was all over Clint, wanting to know why he wasn’t at the tower taking care of Peter. Natasha assured him that Peter was safe with Bruce and that she had personally kissed the boy goodbye and left him blissfully coloring in the den on Banner‘s floor. No one would dare touch a hair of that child’s head with his uncle Hulk just under the surface of the quiet doctor.   
  
Meanwhile, Steve was taking a moment to say goodbye to Bucky.   
  
The soldier could tell a lot was going on in his old friends mind by the way Bucky had stared at him just moments after the sounds of battle settled. That this all had been as hard for Barnes as it had been for Tony. Steve knew however, Thor and Loki had been right in keeping the brunette off Earth, because there would have been nothing to stop his old friend from falling back into the darkness of the Winter Soldier.   
  
Bucky and Tony would have likely been side-by-side, burning half of Europe to the ground if it meant killing every hydra agent on the planet. That was one slice of hell Steve was glad to see his friend spared. He wasn’t sure if he could have helped salvage both of them… Although, seeing the way Loki kept casting such longing looks over at the sniper- Steve wondered if it was really his job anymore to trail after Bucky. It seemed the two fallen men had somehow found solace with one another.   
  
“Hey Jerk…”   
  
Bucky turned and eyed him silently, face as unreadable as ever. “I wasn’t worried ya know. You’re like a cockroach, never could keep ya down. Him though…” Bucky nodded in Tony’s direction where the man had finally slipped from the armor and was currently sitting on the dropped boarding ramp of the quinjet. “He pretends like he’s strong, kinda like this scrawny punk I used to know…but really…he’s all tore up on the inside. Broken men are dangerous… I would know.”   
  
Steve didn’t want to believe that Tony was broken, but he could see the frayed edges in the way the inventor kept his eyes away from the rest of the team. That familiar shame that he remembered when he first brought Bucky home. Steve could only hope that he could turn this around for Tony. “I won’t give up on him. I can’t.”  
  
Barnes smiled and glances over to where Loki was arguing with Thor about something. It was always something with those two. “Of course you won’t, we got this thing for high maintenance brats don’t we?”  
  
“Gluttons for punishment.” Steve laughed clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Take it easy Bucky. Come visit more often too, Peter misses you.”

* * *

  
With the rainbow bridge fading into the clouds and the quinjet once again taking flight, they all finally had a chance to sit down and breath.   
  
Clint and Natasha sat at the controls, both chatting quietly about weekend plans. Every now and again Natasha would say something in her native language and Barton would fluster, refusing to answer whatever it was she was saying. It wouldn’t take a genius to guess what that was about. Mostly because the focus was not with them.  Phil had stayed behind with the Shield team to comb through the rumble of the hydra base.   
  
Steve and Tony sat next to each other toward the back of the jet. It was a few moments after take off and Tony hadn’t said a word; Steve took his hand and tried to gain the engineers attention. It didn’t work, Tony’s eyes looked far away and his breathing started to pick up. Steve had seen this before, quickly and quietly, he unbuckled them from their seats and pulled Tony up along side him.   
  
Natasha would have noticed anyway, but she wouldn’t ask. At least not now.   
  
Pulling Tony into the jets private bathroom, Steve tugged off his own gloves and set to working open the zipper on Tony under suit. He knew Tony needed to feel the air, and hopefully that would stave off the panic.  “Tony, darling… look at me ok?” Steve spoke softly as he set the billionaire down on the closed toilet lid. Fingers working to free the slighter man from the tight fitting neoprene.   
  
He reached over passing a hand over the faucet sensor, “Jarvis are you here?”  Steve hoped to god that the AI was on board.  
  
“It’s good to hear from you Captain. It has…been far too long.”   
  
Steve sighed in relief, “Thanks J, can you tell me how Tony’s doing?”   
  
“Sir’s respiration and heart rate seem erratic, he is slightly underweight and I suspect lacking proper sleep and nutrition. He dose not however, appear to have any immediately alarming injuries Captain.” The AI sounded full of regret, perhaps even Jarvis felt like he failed his creator.   
  
Rogers nodded, he could work with that. Tony could come back from this physically- he knew that, mentally…well Steve would be there for that no matter how long it took. “Tones, I’m gonna put a cool rag on the back of your neck ok? It’s just me baby; we’re in the quinjet and were going home.”   
  
Steve stood but kept one hand on Tony’s shoulder as he maneuvered to fold and wring a rag with one hand. He had to keep touching his husband, had to ground the man because right now Tony looked so far away.  It hurt see him that way, one thing Steve never liked was feeling powerless and right now that’s all he felt.    
  
The scene made him remember the nights when their roles where reversed, when it was Steve waking in the night soaking wet with sweat and head still echoing the sounds of screams and bombs. The way Tony would peel him out of his nightclothes and talk about anything and everything. Explaining something as intricate as advanced mechanics or as trivial as an article about some new fashion fad.   Words were Tony’s weapon and in those nights when Steve felt like he was right back in those muddy foxholes - it was those words that brought him back.   
  
Steve wasn’t a big talker, he said what he needed to say or what he felt should be said. That wasn’t always the case; he was pretty bad about writing a check with his mouth that his skinny ass couldn’t cash back in the day.  Right now, though if it was words Tony needed he would do his best to give them.   
  
“Tony, sweetheart everything going to get better, I‘m here now and I‘m not gonna go anywhere. I‘m right here…” Steve whispered, kneeling down in front of his husband and gently soothing away traces of grime and sweat with the damp rag. “Say something… I need to know what I can do.”  
  
“I…” Tony seemed to choke on the words as his eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t look at Steve because every time he did he saw that long black casket draped with a flag. He could feel the blood on his hands; he could see Peters face begging him not to leave… “What have I done…?”  
  
There was no easy fix for this. No way to undo the damage that had been done because too much time had passed for that. Steve knew all the guilt Tony carried around already for the people he couldn’t save and the weapons of death and destruction that his fathers company made. His husband felt all of those pains as uniquely as if they were wounds on his flesh. Now… they truly were. Steve could see the scars from Vengeful’s rough edges on Tony’s arms and signs of the past months etched on the inventers face. This wasn’t something Steve could chase away with words and touches. No amount of assurance that he could provide would cleanse this away. All he could do was be here. To stand strong and be partner Tony needed right now.   
  
“You made a mistake, but in all fairness you didn’t have the right information. You reacted out of hurt and anger. I’m not going to blame you for it because I don’t know that I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”  
  
Tony huffed out a humorless laugh, “You wouldn’t have fought you’re best friend or abandoned our son…you wouldn’t….god Steve I …I killed so many people.” Tony finally raised his dark haunted eyes. “I wanted it, I wanted to kill every single one of the bastard. I wanted to watch the life drain right out of them. What does that make me? How can I even touch our son…knowing what I’ve become?”  
  
The captain wasn’t sure why…but it felt right, it felt like the only thing he could do. He took his lovers face in his hands and placed a kiss between the engineer’s tired eyes. “I love you and I forgive you, but I need you to forgive yourself.” Steve felt his own tears threatening, hoping this was the right thing.  Tony did all of this under some banner of revenge all in His name. So if in someway he could absolve those sins he would try. He would take it all if he could. “Please…I can’t lose you to this anymore than you could lose me.”   
  
“I don’t know how I’m gonna get through this Steve. I’m suppose to have all the answer but I don’t not for this.”  
  
“We do it just like everything else, together.”

* * *

  
When they returned to the tower, Steve pulled Natasha aside and asked her to brief Pepper and Bruce. Asking if she could give them the task of sitting down with Peter and explain to him his Father is alive. As much as Steve wanted to see, his little boy he knew that he had to make sure his husband was alright because Peter needed them both at their best.   
  
Things would be stressful for a while and Steve just needed a little breathing room to figure out how to handle the fall out. Even with the battles over and them both home this wasn’t the end, they couldn’t just pick up were they left off like a fairy tale.   
  
“Are you sure this is ok?” He’d asked her. Steve felt so guilty for putting so much on the woman even if Natasha seemed to take it all in stride.   
  
“Don’t worry, you take care of things here and I’ll take care of everything else. Bruce and I will keep Pete tonight and then in the morning we’ll bring him by so you all can have some time together. I know you’re just looking out for him Steve, for both of them.”   
  
“Thank you Tasha, it means a lot really.”   
  
She waved him off and set about her task. Steve had his own task to attend to.

* * *

  
Tony was still sitting on the side of the bed right where Steve left him, just staring at his hands.   
  
“Hey…come on.” Steve offered his hand with a tired smile. Tony looked at the hand and then up at the blond, the skepticism Steve saw there hurt. This was going to be a long road but one he’d gladly walk.   
  
Tony took his hand and the entered the master bathroom where Steve gently removed both of their clothes. He stood there for a while just looking his husband over, mentally cataloging all the changes. It was so jarring, considering Steve had woken up just a day or so ago. Before that, he’d been on the mission for two weeks, so for him it felt like all this had happened in less that month. Steve knew that wasn’t right of course.   
  
It had been much the same coming out of the ice. One day he was chatting with the commandos and the next he staring up at 100 foot screens mounted on buildings and cars that could park themselves.   
  
The memory sent a shiver through the solider.  Tony reached out and steadied him, it was a good sign. The brunette could always tell when he was thinking about the ice.   
  
“We both need to get clean, and then you need a shave. Ok?”   
  
Tony looked at him for a long moment, “I just, I know you’re here but…”  
  
“It’s ok, I am here and I swear to you I’m going to be here for a long time Tony. Can’t get rid of me that easy.” Steve tried one of his lopsided smiles and received a soft one from his husband in return.  They were going to be fine; it was just going to take some time.   
  
The shower felt good, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and just held him under the spray for a long time. There was nothing particularly sexual about this. They just needed this closeness, it was reassuring and that’s what Tony really needed right now.   
  
They took turned washing each other, exchanging soft words and kisses. If there were more tears shed the water hid them well, Tony was thankful for that. He wasn’t sure he could bear that painful look in Steve’s eyes anymore. To some extend it did make him feel more human to be clean.  It was a few moments of just forgetting everything and letting the warm jets sink in through his tired skin. Moments of Oasis - sheltering there against his husbands chest, feeling Steve’s heart beating beneath his fingers.   
  
“We’re getting pruny… well you are. I don’t think I can get pruny.” Steve finally said, examining his fingers and not finding the tell tale waterlog wrinkles.   
  
Tony hummed and kisses his partners slippery shoulder. “Yeah, I have enough wrinkles as it is.”   
  
It felt good to hear the inventor’s voice pick up. There was hope there.   
  
They dried off and Steve made no qualms about picking the other man up and setting him on the sink. Even if Tony did scowl at him, muttering about being manhandled. That was nice to, because if Tony was feeling up to his little jokes, he was clearly doing something right.   
  
“Now, I’m not a barber but I don’t think I’ll make too much of a mess.”   
  
Tony shrugged and rubbed his chin, his facial hair had gotten out of control.  “Just take it all off; it’ll be easier to start from scratch.”  
  
Steve smirked as he opened the bathroom drawers “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”  He said looking for his razor when he realized it wasn’t there.   
  
“Pepper…she put it in the closet, with everything else of yours. It’s locked up actually cause…” Tony didn’t want to say it, Pepper was afraid that Tony would have slashed his wrists with Steve’s straight razor. He saw it in her eyes the day she came in and stowed everything away in the safe with explicit directions to Jarvis not to let Tony in.   
  
Steve didn’t say anything about that, just walking into the closet and moving over a few of Tony’s sport coats to show the palm scanner. The system recognized him and the door popped open. It broke his heart to see a stack of picture frames, a jewelry box and his shaving kit inside. Pepper was only trying to help. 

* * *

  
It was quiet and methodical, in a way more intimate than anything else as Steve tilted Tony’s head back taking off a strip of stubble. This was the second pass with the razor to get things cleaned up.  Afterward when Tony took a towel and cleaned off the remaining shaving cream, Steve pulled a face and touched the billionaire’s smooth chin.   
  
“It’s weird.”   
  
“Thank you sweetheart, I love you too.”   
  
“Tony I don’t mean it like that,” Steve soothed, leaning in to kiss the now clean jaw. “It’s soft, you’re very handsome.”   
  
The brunette smiled, really smiled and Steve took that as a small victory, “Well don’t get used to sugar. Daddy will be getting his van dyke back, it may take a few weeks but I my chin feels cold with out it.” Tony was silent for a moment just looking him over. They were both still just in towels. “Promise me something.”  
  
“Anything.” Steve returned taking his partners offered hands.   
  
“Promise that when we go to sleep, you’ll still be there when I wake up.”  
  
“I promise Tony.”

* * *

  
**“I'm crying out, I'm breaking down, I am fearing it all, Stuck inside these walls, Tell me there is hope for me.”**


	20. Smile

 

**“Smile… though your heart is aching, smile even though it’s breaking. When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by. If you Smile.”  
**

* * *

Steve woke up to the sound of voices entering the penthouse. He recognized them immediately as Natasha and Bruce, the third voice made his heart ache…Peter.

The soldier had missed so much time with his little boy, all these months had to have been painful for Peter, Having lost one parent and then slowly watch the other fall apart and distance themselves. There was no way that a child that young would have been able to understand why things where happening around him.

“Calm down let me just go see if their awake ok? Why don’t we turn on your cartoons and wait?” Bruce spoke trying to calm down a likely fidgeting child.

“I want my daddies!” Peter shouted

The thunderous sound of tiny feet rocketed down the hall; Steve barely had enough time to nudge Tony awake before the bedroom door slid open and a tearful little ball of energy launched onto the bed.

Peter was still in his pajamas and desperately trying to plaster himself to his papa.

“I knew you’d come back! I knew I knew! Every one said you couldn’t cause you was in heaven but I knew!” Peter sobs and clung to Steve’s neck. “Please don’t go back! Please stay Papa, Please I‘ll be good I swear!”

Tony was groggy but hearing their son’s pitiful cries and pleas, he managed to wake up wake up and rub the simpering child’s back. “Hey buddy no ones going anywhere.”

Peter sniffled and turned his head - eyeing his father mistrustfully. “Daddy…your face is naked.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh, kissing his sons temple while his husband pouted next to him. “He looks funny doesn’t he, I bet you didn’t know daddy had a chin under there huh sweet pea?”

“Whatever, I’m sexy…me and my fantastic chin are just gunna go back to sleep then.” Tony grumbled turning over and dramatically pulling the blanket over his head.

“I’m sorry daddy!” Peter whined and abandoned Steve to fling himself onto his other father. Tugging at the blanket and fretfully whining.

Tony immediately caved; He’d never seen Peter so needy and upset. It didn’t take a genius to see the budding abandonment issues the child was already suffering and that broke Tony. Because Stark knew what that was, like to miss your father and need him there only to be left behind. “I’m sorry too baby.” He said wrapping his arms around the little boy. “I’m sorry too.”

Steve smiled sadly and rubbed Peter’s hair, “Sweetie why don’t you go see if Uncle Bruce and Aunt Natasha are still here, they might need your help.”

“No…don’t wanna.” Peter whined mumbling into Tony’s neck.

“Pete, your papa asked you to do something. We don’t say no buddy.”

“No daddy. If I go you’ll both disappear.”

Didn’t that just tear out their hearts? Steve folded and pulled one of the pillows away to cover himself with to slip out of the bed while Tony kept Peter occupied. The pair cuddled and Tony held Peter above the blanket, though the little boy didn’t understand why he couldn’t get in the bed. Thankfully, Peter didn’t press the issue more did he go looking for Steve and was happy enough to lie down and curl up on Tony’s chest.

When Steve came back out dressed in a pair of track pants and tank top, he had to pause and just watch his little family for a moment. Peter was laying there tracing the lines of the arc reactor with his fingers as Tony talked to him about his sleep over with Aunt Tasha and Uncle Bruce. Apparently, Uncle Bruce let him help make salsa and they watched Tarzan.

Steve crept back over and ticked Peter’s sides making the child squirm and squeal. They were able to trade off so Tony could get changed; Steve could already see how this was going to go for a while. Chances were that Peter was going to need to be next to at least one of them at all times until he felt safe and sure his parents were not going to ‘disappear’.

* * *

 

Once they were both ready to face the day, Steve carried Peter, with Tony walking just behind where the little one could see him, out into the kitchen to find breakfast ready set for three at the table. God bless Bruce Banner.

“Look Peter pan, it’s your fav -blue berry pancakes.” Steve said setting the child down next to Tony who was already sipping his beloved coffee.

“My boy knows good pancakes.” the billionaire commented, not surprised at all when Peter scooted his chair closer to him. “Blue berry for life” holding out a fist to be bumped by a smaller one.

Breakfast was semi quiet, more so than it usually was with Peter. That was another thing that made Tony worry. Another thing that was his fault. What if Peter had anxiety and it stunted his speech? What if his son just stopped talking one day? It wasn’t as if Tony knew how that sort of thing worked. His childhood hadn’t been the best but in retro-spect maybe, that was why he was so awful at being an adult. The last thing he ever wanted was for Peter to turn out as he had.

Steve could see the wheels of guilt turning and reached over for Tony’s hand. Giving the inventor, much needed support in the moment of darkness. This was just the first day and they would get through it together.

* * *

 

Peter was napping on the sofa with Tony carding fingers through the sleeping child’s hair. “He’s probably going to need therapy now…I made our kid need therapy Steve. I told you I would screw this up and now I have, I‘m just like Howard. ”

Steve moved to take Tony’s face in his hands. “No, don’t you ever say that Tony. You are not your father, things happened but that doesn’t mean that they have to stay that way. You’re a fighter babe, our son is just like you and I love you both. Whatever Peter needs we will face that ok?”

“I ..I was just so alone. All I could do was try and fix it.” Tony muttered, he didn’t want to cry again. Not if it meant waking Peter and possibly frightening him.

Steve leaned in and kissed his husbands head, “I know, it’s over now. To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if Tasha isn’t in Fury’s office popping out his other eye.”

“Think of the money he’ll save on eye patches, he can just get a blind fold”

“That is terrible and a little funny.”

Tony smiled and shifted Peter in his lap to lay down on the sofa with the child. “I’m getting over an emotional crisis, sue me if my humor isn’t top form. Now lay down Blondie it’s nap time.”

* * *

 

**“You’ll see the sun come shining through for you.”**

 


	21. Fly

“Keep on climbing though the ground might shake; just keep on reaching though the limb might break. We’ve come this far don’t you be scared now…”  
  
The Avengers held a press conference stating that Steve is alive, his body had been ‘miss identified’. The cover-story, that he had suffered a traumatic injury and spent the better part of a year - missing and wandering around with no idea who he was or where he was. They used the theory that his injuries were so grievous it  took some time  before the serum had repaired all of the damage giving him back his faculties so that the Captain could find his way back. It was both believable and fantastic; the media went wild with the heartwarming story of perseverance and strength. If anything, it called up even more patriotism and meaningful folk-songs hitting the top 40.  
  
Steve hated covering one lie with another, but everyone said it would be better this way.  
  
A second happy side effect was that more people were coming around to Tony and Steve’s relationship, the idea that a love so strong could bring two people back together across miles and circumstance. It did not seem to matter that they were both men, the outpouring of support was something to behold.  
  
The city and the nation held a modest welcome, per Steve’s request to quote ‘hold the fan fair for our boys fighting overseas, I’m just one man.’   
  
So a few days after the press conference, just after sundown; every house, apartment, trailer, and so on; from the most modest dwelling to the most lavish - placed two white candles on their window ledges and turned out all the lights for one hour.  
  
Steve felt himself tear up looking out as the city dimmed and little lights flickered to life. The little torches burned for that solemn dark hour before everything returned to normal.  
  
There was something oddly healing about that moment, standing there on the penthouse balcony with his family. A little candle in a lantern sitting on the patio table between them.  
  
“Welcome home Papa.” Peter said softly as he smuggled into Steve’s side. Tony, who was on Peters other side, wrapped his arm around his husband and kissed his cheek. Things were going to get better, and this was just the first few steps toward that.

* * *

  
  
The next step, was Tony putting Vengeance away and starting work on a new armor, this became something like  ‘therapy ‘. Whether or not Iron Man would be returning that remained to be seen. However, Steve was glad to see Tony working on the new specs with Peter on his lap.  
  
  This new suit looked more like the old Mark versions. There was some talk about incorporating some research Tony had from a Dr. Maya - it was called Extremis, Steve didn‘t know a lot about it, but he trusted Tony. The inventor said that the tech was still a few years ahead before he did anything with it, if ever. He did not elaborate.  
  
Steve was there every step of the way; Captain America was taking a little vacation from active duty. He wanted to be there while Tony worked to find himself again.  
  
The couple was also dealing with Peter and the child’s fears of abandonment. Bruce got back in touch with a friend of his who had given up the biological sciences for psychology. Dr. Betty Ross came by the tower and started doing short weekly sessions with Peter. It was helping give a voice to the little boy’s worries. As a family, they could work to make sure that Peter knew he would never be left alone.  
  
With all the work towards wholeness, there was one piece in the grand scheme that needed to be addressed.  
  
Fury.  
  
Phil said he didn‘t know much other than Fury had left Shield with out a word. Considering Maria was planning to kick him out anyway was moot.   
  
Steve and Tony were included to believe him; things were still a little sketchy on Phil’s end. He and Clint may never be where they were, but according to Natasha, the agent had attended Barton’s weekend visitation with his kids. That seemed to go smoothly.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Maybe we need to let it go…”  
  
It surprised Steve that Tony had been the one to say that. “Is that what you want?” he asked, not wanting Tony to do what he thought everyone else wanted.  
  
Tony leaned back in his rolling chair; they were in the workshop one evening with Peter gone out for Ice Cream with Bucky and Loki. That had been interesting to say the least. “Not really, what I want is to repulsor Nicky boy up his piss hole but that’s not going to do anything about all of this. Revenge only feels good for a few seconds and then it is just cold. Trust me I know. I think I am just done with it. I’m not saying he’s back on the Christmas card list- but I’m not actively trying to kill anyone. . Not anymore.”  
  
Maybe they could find some peace at the end of all this, but not every member of the avenger family could, and hell hath no fury like a red head with time on her hands.  
  


* * *

  
The tap of motorcycle boots echo through the dusty old warehouse. She tucks her hands into the pockets of her vest and walks along under the row of industrial lights. The place is quiet, desolate, vacant…or is it.  
  
Green eyes shift left and right through the shadows, she knew someone was here.  
  
On the way inside, she noticed the loading bay doors; they had been maintained and greased. Clearly lacking any substantial build up of rust on the tracks from lack of use. Someone had been coming and going regularly in a van - non descriptive most likely and an old model.  
  
Making her way to a set of metal stairs, Natasha notices another tell. The dust had been disturbed by the treed of boots, small V patterned inner treed with a wider outer treed. Standard issue for SHIELD field operatives, the size is obviously a mans shoe.  
  
Following the steps higher, she notices a few of the small windows along the outer walls have been rubbed clean for observation of the surrounding property.  
  
The last tell was the small foreman’s office on the observation loft. The doorknob was cleaner that it should have been, rubbed from turning with a gloved hand.  
  
She twists the knob and finds the door opens easily, a few feet into the dark office and it looks in disrepair. An old desk and filing cabinets overflowing with yellowed paperwork. Broken glass litters the floor, both from windows and beer bottles. The impression that perhaps some teenagers are the culprits for any recent entry is magnified by crude graffiti on the walls.  
  
It was believable, then again it should be. To the untrained eye…it would be, to someone who had not been around this kind of tech for years it would be perfect. They wouldn’t have noticed the way the faint rays of light filtering through the broken windows seamed to shimmer. Projected camo technology, it was good - maybe even the best. However, even the best had its limits, the energy field energized to employ the cloaking over the area wasn‘t with out its flaws.  
  
The final nail in the coffin, Natasha’s eyes caught a subtle shine of black that quirked her lips into a smile. A black widow spider made its way across the floor and disappeared as if into thin air.  
  
“Going to invite a girl in Nick? I did come all this way.”  
  
The false setting shimmered away to reveal a cleaned area with an army cot, laptop and small cash of supplies. “ I don’t remember inviting you in the first place.” Nick said  
  
Natasha looked around the small area and inclined her head, “Well I guess the rest of Shield wasn’t on board with your…vision.”  
  
“Some people can’t make the hard choices.”  
  
Her face was impassive, “ And you can, you can chose to let a child believe is his father is dead and watch a spouse self destruct all for the greater good. You know, I used to work for men who thought much the same, they thought they could take children and turn them into killers.”  
  
Fury crossed his arms and leveled her with a glare. “That’s hardly the same thing Natasha.”  
  
“Is it? Or is that the lie you tell yourself to make this seem righteous. You know I used to think Steve was bad about that sort of thinking. Truth is…you just cant stand losing, you couldn’t stand that your record as director of shield was a joke. So you wanted to make that one final push, and you sacrificed who ever was convenient.”  
  
“As you know the Captain is alive and well.”  
  
“Well, is a mater of context. How well are you Nick? Are you sleeping well hiding in this place like a fugitive? So much for savior of Shield.” She knew what buttons to press and how far to push.  
  
The man stood and nearly growled in her face, “I did the one thing my predecessor could not do!”  
  
“No, Stark did that not you. You sat back and watched.”  
  
“Don’t act like your blameless in this Widow, how much blood is on your hands. If it wasn’t for me…”  
  
She interrupted with fierce eyes, “Nyet, Barton brought me in. All you did was sign the paperwork.”  
  
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe his conscious had been niggling in the back of his mind but Fury lost it. He pushed her and that was a mistake. Natasha was agile and swift, avoiding the wide blows easily. Fury wasn’t stupid enough to pull his gun on her.  
  
She sweeps his legs away and lands hard on the older mans chest, a thin blade pressed to his cheek. “ You’re lucky it was me, Bruce wanted to let the other guy deal with you. I don‘t want to kill you Nick, but don’t ever let me catch you near Steve, Tony, or Peter ever again. Or you will lose your other eye.”  
  
He knew she would do it, that’s one thing he could always count on with Widow, her word meant something - especially her threats.  
  
“Was thinking about retiring anyway, get the hell away from you people.”  
  
Natasha stood and the thin knife slid away under her jacket sleeve, “I hear Australia nice.”

* * *

  
  
**“You can learn to fly… on the way down.”**   
  
**FIN**


End file.
